Welton Rhodes and William O. Justice both served as sheriff of Madera County, one right after the other. Rhodes was sheriff from 1927 to 1934, and Justice served from 1935 to 1955.
The two men had something else in common. They both had sons who went off to fight in World War II, but that’s not all. Once the sons went off to battle, the fathers never saw them again, but for very different reasons.
When Sheriff Justice told his son, Carroll, goodbye in 1944, he never saw him again because the younger Justice was shot down while on a bombing run over Formosa in 1945. His remains were not brought back to the United States until 1947.