Sig Rodgers Young

b. April 23, 1913, Los Angeles, California
d. June 3, 1982 Tucson, Arizona

 Sig was the first child of Pauline Rodgers and Arthur Benjamin Young. He was born in Los Angeles in 1913 about a year after his parents' wedding at her father's ranch in Canelo. Sig was named after his uncle, Sigfred Young, from Astoria, Oregon.

 He lived most of his first ten years in the home his parents had built on that ranch; as he was growing up, he attended the new Canelo one room school, riding with his younger sister, Virginia, on their donkey 'Trotsky' every day the two miles each way to and from school. His parents divorced; he and his mother Pauline and his sister moved into Tucson.

 He was a student at the University of Arizona, leaving it in 1934, and was a member of Phi Delta Theta, and in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. In 1937, he entered the primary flying school at Randolph Field, Texas as a flying cadet. He was transferred to Kelly Field in San Antonio where he received his "wings" and his commission in the Air Corps Reserve, graduating as a full fledged "attack pilot". In 1938 he reported to March field in Tucson where he was assigned to the 73rd attack squadron of the 17th attack group, and in 1940, he passed the competitive exams to obtain a regular Air Corps commission.

 He was a Captain and B17 bomber pilot in the eastern Pacific during WWII. In 1942, several Tucson newspapers reported that he was awarded the distinguished service cross for his services in the Phillipines, Mindanao, Macassar Straits, and Java campaigns. He then became commander of the heavy bombardment processing group at Topeka Air Base in Kansas, where he met Mary Washburn; they married sometime before 1945, and had a daughter, Viki Sue, in 1950.

 In 1945 he and his wife, Mary, hosted a dinner at El Corral in Tucson to welcome home his brother-in-law, Justin Gardner Smith, who had just returned from his service in England in WWII to join his wife Virginia Eason Young Smith and their two year old son, Sig Corbin, named after him.

 Sometime after their daughter was born, Sig and Mary divorced and he never remarried. In addition to WWII, he served in the Korean War, and in Vietnam. He became a Colonel and was Chairman of the Reserve Officers Association for Arizona. He was a close friend and colleague of Donald McRell who is buried next to him. Sig lived in Tucson most of his life and died there in 1982.


Sig and Virginia on Trotsky

writtten by Sig Corbin Smith, his nephew from family history and Tucson newspaper accounts

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