Jack “Bud” Wassell Chapell was born 22 November 1921 in Loma, Chouteau county, Montana to John and Ethel Chappell; he had two older sisters. His father was a sheep rancher. Bud graduated from the Fort Benton High School in 1939; he was part of the Band & Troubadours in addition to the FFA while attending. He registered for the draft on 16 February 1942 standing 5’10” tall, weighing 165 pounds with blue eyes and brown hair; working for the CM & St Paul Railroad yards. He also worked for the Great Northern Railroad as a depot operator prior to his enlistment on 11 September 1942, hoping for the air corps. He worked with the signal branch of the air corps as a telegraph and teletype operator.

Jack Wassell Chappell (service number 19123515) was a trainer at the gunnery school near Las Vegas, Nevada. The Las Vegas Army Airfield graduated 600 gunnery students and 215 co-pilots every five weeks. It was during some of this training that his plane crashed near Fort Benton, Montana on 11 March 1943. He was originally buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Fort Benton but was reinterred to the Hillcrest Lawn Memorial Mausoleum in Great Falls, Montana.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

SOURCES: Find-a-Grave; Ancestry.com; HonorStates.com; Great Falls Tribune 14 & 16 Mar 1943

Jack W Chappell