The History of InfoAge Science & History Museums

World War II & Radar - Belmar Camp Named ‘Evans’

Published in The Asbury Park Press on March 26, 1942

This article was found on file at the Monmouth County Historical Association Library by Steve Goulart. The photo of Lt. Col. Paul W. Evans was supplied by his family.
Lt. Col Paul W. Evans committal services, with full military honors, were at Arlington National Cemetery on April 28, 1936. His obituary can be found in the Signal Corps Bulletin, July – August 1936, pp 25-26


Lt. Col. Paul W. Evans

The present site of the Signal Corps Radar Laboratory at Belmar will be designated as Camp Evans in memory of the late Lt. Col. Paul W. Evans the War Department has announced.

The official dedication will take place Tuesday, March 31, at 10:30 A.M. The ceremony will be held at the site of the present flagpole.  Brig. Gen. G. L. Van Deusen, Fort Monmouth Commandant, and Staff and guests will be welcomed by Lt. Col. Corput, Commanding Officer of Camp Evans, and other officers of that post.  The following music by the Signals Corp Band and an invocation by Chaplain Coholan, the Adjutant will read the official order of dedication.  After the flag-raising ceremonies, and the playing of the National Anthem, Brig. Gen. Van Deusen and Lt. Col. Corput will deliver brief speeches.  The benediction by Chaplain Karl Schleede will close the dedication.

Colonel Evans was born in Delaware, OH, on June 10, 1889, a descendant of pioneer stock dating back to the Revolution.  Graduating from Ohio Wesleyan College as an honor student, and with a B.S. degree, he entered Yale as an engineering student in 1910.  Upon receiving a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery, Regular Army, he left Yale Nov. 25, 1912.  Lt. Col. Evans shortly was transferred to the Signal Corps, and up to the entry of the United States in World War I, he served at various stations in this country and its possessions.  During that war, Lt. Col. Evans sailed abroad with the 1st Division and was promoted along the line to major, having seen active service in the important battles of Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, and St. Mihiel.

Following his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, in the National Army, he became the Signal Officer of the 26th Div.   Later, he graduated from the Army War College in Washington, D.C., and the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  In addition to several tours at Fort Monmouth, where he headed the 51st Signal Battalion, he served at various posts in the United States and the Panama Canal Zone, where he died April 10, 1936, at the age of 46.  Complications following malaria ended his career.

A recent honor conferred upon Lt. Col. Evan’s memory was the naming of the “Evans”, the largest craft owned and operated by the Signal Corps.  The “Evans,” a 65-foot utility ship, was the seventh vessel added for operations and service with the Signal Corps in the Panama Canal Zone area and was officially launched and named last Aug. 1, at Oyster Bay, L.I.

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