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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Herb Fash

 

Date and Place of Birth: 1916 East St Louis, Illinois
Date and Place of Death: February 21, 1945 Pacific
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: First Base
Rank: Lieutenant (jg)
Military Unit: US Navy
Area Served: Pacific Theater of Operations

 

His .402 batting average for the Olean Oilers in 1940, made Herb Fash a fan-favorite. But a freak accident would claim his life five years later.

 

Charles H "Herb" Fash was born in East St Louis, Illinois in 1916. He attended the University of St Louis where he was an excellent baseball player, and he broke into professional baseball in 1936 with the Union City Greyhounds of the Kitty League, batting .263 with 44 RBIs. He was brought up to the Columbus Red Birds of the American Association at the end of the season but was assigned to Decatur of the Three-I League in 1937 where he batted .315.

 

The big first baseman was with the Taft Cardinals of the Texas Valley League in 1938 where he batted .345 with 14 home runs and an impressive 132 RBIs. He split the 1939 season between the New Iberia Cardinals of the Evangeline League and the Mobile Shippers of the Southeastern League, batting .283 in 76 games for the Cardinals and .337 in 47 games for the Shippers.

 

Fash joined the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1940 and was with the Fayetteville Angels of the Arkansas-Missouri League as a player-manager. He was batting .356 when the league collapsed on June 30 and the Dodgers sent him to the Olean Oilers of the PONY League where he became a fan-favorite with the New York team. His superb .408 batting average in 66 games helped lift the Oilers from the PONY basement to the top spot, and he was described by the Olean Times-Herald in 1945 as "the most popular man to wear an Oiler uniform."

 

Fash was sold to the Elmira Pioneers of the Eastern League in 1941 and spent the year with the Durham Bulls of the Piedmont League where he batted .253 before breaking his leg in July. He entered military service with the US Navy the following year.

 

 

Lieutenant (jg) Fash was serving on the aircraft carrier USS Hancock in the Pacific. On February 21, 1945, at around 1.30pm off the coast of Okinawa, a Grumman TBF Avenger, returning from a sortie, made a normal landing, taxied and disintegrated in a blinding explosion as one of its 500-pound bombs exploded. Fifty-two men were killed - including Herb Fash.

 

 

Herb Fash, 28 years old, was buried at sea and is remembered at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

 

Added August 19, 2006. Updated June 20, 2008.

Copyright © 2008 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.