Staff Sgt. Edwin Darling was one of eight WWII casualties from Westminster

WESTMINSTER – The town of Westminster has done as good a job as any local community in paying homage to its war casualties over the years.

Squares are named in memory of World War I heroes Private Rollin M. Cannon and Private William S. Miller, while American Legion Post 174 on Main Street is also named in honor of Pvt. Miller.

There are bridges over Route 2 commemorating Vietnam War heroes Francis Bond and Michael Waterman.

And when it came to World War II deaths, the costliest to the town of any 20th century war, there are squares designated in honor of all eight soldiers who gave their lives.

Mark Landry, the veteran’s graves officer as well as a member of the town’s veteran’s committee for the Westminster Historical Society, provided a good deal of information to help complete this and the upcoming columns profiling soldiers from the town.

The memorial squares and their locations in Westminster are as follows:

• Edwin Darling , corner West Main and Main Streets, Westminster Center.

• Wayne Friberg, intersection of East Gardner Road and Oakmont Avenue

• William F. Gilliland, at the junction of Bolton and Mile Hill roads

• Douglas E. Hicks, intersection of Main, Nichols and Eaton streets

• Paul A. Ilves, junction of Davis and Harrington roads.

• Edmund O. Nelson, junction of Bragg Hill and South Ashburnham roads

• Wendell A. Nye, intersection of Nichols, Ellis and Knower roads

• Urho Sakkinen, intersection of Bacon, North Common and Overlook roads

This is the continuation of the series Remembering Local World War II Heroes.

Staff Sgt. Edwin Darling (1920-1945)

Edwin Darling was born on Dec. 19, 1920 in Lynn, Mass., the son of Edwin and Rose A. (Cressy) Darling. The family moved to the town of Dana, one of the four towns vacated in the 1930s to make room for the Quabbin Reservoir, and they later relocated to Baldwinville.

Edwin had two older sisters, Dorothy and Helen, an older brother, Robert, and a younger sister, Muriel.

Due to the Hurricane of 1938, the Darling family home in Baldwinville was damaged to the point that they had to take up residence in another home on South Athol Road. While his father Edwin Sr. was repairing his car in the driveway, he was stricken with heart trouble and died suddenly at the age of 45 on Oct. 3, 1938.

Young Edwin graduated from Templeton High School and took a job as a woodworker in a local chair factory. Around 1941, he moved with his mother and sister Muriel to a home at 31 Main St. in Westminster, on the corner of West Main Street. While living in the town, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force on Sept. 1, 1942 at Fort Devens.

Darling was a Staff Sergeant serving as a rear gunner aboard twin-engine Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers in the Pacific theater with the 389th Bomber Squadron in the 312th Bombardment Group.

More: Greater Gardner's first WWII victim hailed from Otter River

Landry noted that in early 1943, the 389th squadron was deployed to Southern California to support Army maneuvers in the Mojave Desert until October.

“They were re-equipped with North American A-36 Apache dive bombers and then deployed to New Guinea with Curtis P-40 Warhawks,” Landry wrote.

In the summer of 1944, the 312th Bombardment Group became engaged on New Guinea, attacking airfields and troops, and providing aid to the invasion of Palau. Through late 1944 to early 1945, the group would advance to the Philippines as part of the “Island Hopping” campaign to push the Japanese out of the South Pacific.

The 312th Bomb Group would receive a Distinguished Unit Citation for eight raids on factories in Formosa between March 25 and April 4. The 312th then moved its base of operations to Floridablanca on April 19.

According to research by Landry, “On May 19, 1945, Edwin took his position in an A-20 as a rear gunner and his squadron began to take off in succession for a mission to Kinicao in Luzon. The lead planes spiraled up into the air higher and higher, waiting for the last of the squadron to be airborne before getting into formation.”

More: Templeton HS athlete and baseball hero perished in Philippines

Bob Hornbeck, who was historian for the 312th Bomb Group, was in the same group but a different squadron as Staff Sgt. Darling at the time of his death. He would later provide the following narrative:

How Staff Sgt. Darling died

"On May 19, 1945, two squadrons (386th and 387th) took off on a mission to Mankayan, Luzon while the 388th and 389th left for a mission to Kinicao. I was in the 387th; we took off first and headed on our way. Staff Sgt. Darling was a gunner in the 389th and was flying with either Lt. Robert Sims or Lt. Omar Pitts, I'm not sure which. On our missions, we only carried one gunner, who manned the twin 50-caliber guns in the rear turret.

"On attempting to join up in formation, the plane flown by Sims collided with the one flown by Potts and they both went spinning down out of control. Being at low altitude, there wasn't much opportunity for anyone to bail out. The gunner in one plane, Staff Sgt. Patrick Reitmeyer, actually jumped out of the plane through the tunnel hatch as the fuselage was sliding along the ground and suffered only slight injury. The two pilots and Staff Sgt. Darling were killed.

More: World War II claimed three men from Templeton Center

"I don't know what caused the accident; both pilots were experienced and had flown a number of missions. Whether one was overtaking the formation too rapidly, or one of them had an engine failure at a critical point in the join-up, no one knows. It was a truly unfortunate accident but not that rare in combat flying.”

Killed over Luzon at the age of 24, Staff Sgt. Darling was buried in Silver Lake Cemetery in Athol.

The square at the intersection of Main and West Main streets, adjacent to the home he lived in while in Westminster, is named in his honor.

Comments and suggestions for Remembering Local World War II Heroes can be sent to Mike Richard at mikerichard0725@gmail.com or in writing Mike Richard, 92 Boardley Road, Sandwich, MA 02563.

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Staff Sgt. Edwin Darling died in WWII plane crash in Luzon