Escort planned for airman's remains
By Steve Herring
Published in News on March 26, 2018 5:50 AM
Wayne County residents are being asked to line Wayne Memorial Drive on Thursday, April 5, to give a hero's welcome home to native son Col. Edgar Felton Davis who is returning home 50 years after his death in the Vietnam War.
"This is not a part of anything that Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is doing," said Al Pedersen, base liaison coordinator for the USO of North Carolina. "This is just something that I had an idea last Friday and started talking to people.
"I just feel too many people who came back at that time, they were spit upon. They weren't welcomed home in the manner I thought they should be. This is a chance to give a proper welcome to a Wayne County native who died serving his country."
Davis' remains are scheduled to arrive at Raleigh-Durham International Airport at approximately 12:30 p.m. on April 5.
Family members will be on hand for the dignified transfer ceremony.
Following the ceremony, the Patriot Guard will provide a motorcycle escort to Seymour Funeral Home. Pedersen said it is his understanding that one or two members of Davis' family will also ride motorcycles in the escort.
The route from the airport will follow Interstate 540 to U.S. 264 to Interstate 795 to the U.S. 70 Bypass. The procession will exit U.S. 70 Bypass at Wayne Memorial Drive to Seymour Funeral Home.
Fire services personnel are supposed to be on every overpass along the route with flags displayed, he said.
"What we are trying to get out to the community, and there is nothing really especially planned, is once they reach the Wayne Memorial exit, it will be a straight shot to Seymour Funeral Home," Pedersen said. "We are just trying to make the public aware of this and those who are so inclined to come, stand in a moment of silence or something like this as the hearse comes by."
The hearse is expected to arrive in Goldsboro between 3 and 4 p.m., but there are a number of variables, he said.
Pedersen said parking will be available at Wayne Community College and the Maxwell Center.
The Goldsboro Fire Department will have an American flag suspended over Wayne Memorial Drive from a firetruck somewhere near the funeral home.
Davis, an Air Force navigator with the 11th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, was reported missing in action after his RF-4C Phantom fighter-bomber jet was shot down Sept. 17, 1968, during a mission 15 miles south of the city of Sepone in the Savannakhet province, Laos.
Davis was later declared deceased after search and rescue teams could not locate him or the fallen aircraft.
Davis' remains were recovered in the Boulapha District, Khammouan province, Laos, in 2015, said Church Prichard, director of public affairs for the agency. It took until December 2017 to identify the remains because of the wide range of tests of evidence necessary to the investigation.
His name is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on panel 43W, line 13.
Davis graduated from Brogden High School in 1953, and was a 1958 graduate of North Carolina State University.
The funeral service will be held Friday, and burial will be in the Eastern North Carolina Veterans Cemetery.