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Doug Gillette
Date and Place of Birth: May
19, 1911 Central Village, Connecticut
Date and Place of Death: April 1995 Arizona
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Pitcher
Rank: Corporal
Military Unit: 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry
Division US Army
Area Served: European Theater of Operations
Thanks to Everett G Reed for help with this biography.
Added February 9, 2005. Updated June 20, 2008. Copyright © 2015 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball
in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.Doug
Gillette's professional baseball career began back in 1932 with the Grand Island
Islanders of
the Nebraska State League. That season the 5-feet-9 right-hander posted a 16-8
won-loss record with a 2.78 ERA. The following season (1933) he was with Sioux Falls in the same league
where he was 10-14. In 1934 he was 7-3 with Greensburg of the Penn State
Association and ws 3-1 with the same club in 1935. Gillette's professional career
then came to an end when
he was released by Greenburg, but his playing days were
far from over.
Military
service beckoned in 1942 and Corporal Gillette was stationed in England with the
116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division. The 116th Yankees were a
dark horse entry in a tournament to find the European Theater baseball champions
in September 1943. Known as the ETO World Series, 20 teams, from as far afield
as Northern Ireland, ascended on Eighth Air Force Headquarters at Bushy Park,
London for the four-day event, and the 116th Infantry Yankees, with Doug
Gillette on the mound, defeated Fighter Command, 6-3, in a thrilling final.
Gillette lived in Pembroke, Massachusetts after the war.
He later moved to Arizona where he passed away in 1995.