Veterans column: Infamous flight leaves Dayton ahead of 1942 Newark crash
On Labor Day, Sept. 7, 1942, 21-year-old Corporal Russel Arens boarded a military plane at Wright Air Field in Dayton. He was catching a flight to Mitchell Air Force Base at Long Island, New York. Later that day, he called his uncle and told him that the plane had returned to Wright Field, because of mechanical difficulties, so he’d catch another flight the next day, on Sept. 8. Even though he was delayed he would still report to base on time he thought, but fate seemed to have other plans for Arens.
It was midmorning on Sept. 8 when the crew of a B-25 bomber, 3 men in the Army Air Corp and 1 civilian who was acting crew chief, reported in for their flight to Mitchell Air Base. Colonel Douglas Kilpatrick was the pilot. The 33-year-old had almost 3,000 hours of flying time and over 44 hours flying a B-25. His co-pilot was Second Lieutenant Lawrence Lawver. The 29-year-old had been in the service for almost four months. Second Lieutenant Russel Newlin would be both the navigator and radio operator on the flight. The 22-year-old had received his commission three months before this flight. The crew chief was Ovido Picon. His family had emigrated from Cuba when he was a boy and lived on Long Island. The 19-year-old was anxious to visit with them and talk about his decision to enlist in the Army Air Corps.
Two other men were scheduled to catch a ride on the flight. Corporal Arens was one and the other was 31-year-old Private Charles Watson. Watson had enlisted on Aug. 21, 1942, in the Army Air Corp but unbeknownst to the crew and officials at Wright Air Field, he was AWOL and boarded the flight using a false pass. A decision he would soon regret.It was a rainy morning when the bomber taxied down the runway at 11:19 a.m. for what should have been a routine flight to New York.
Meanwhile that Tuesday morning in Newark, two women were getting ready to run errands downtown. It was raining, but with the stores being closed the day before for the Labor Day holiday, they were already a day behind in their chores. Seventy-three-year-old widow Dollie Campbell left her home at 22 ½ Wyoming Street. She had chosen a flowered dress to wear that gloomy morning and walked the few blocks downtown through the residential area on Hudson Avenue.
Sixty-Two-year-old Jane Weston was also a widower and lived at her home at 154 Hudson Avenue. The tile and stucco building on the corner of Hudson Ave. and Wyoming St. had adjoining apartments attached to the rear of the home where Jane’s son and daughter-in-law lived. It was a busy morning at her home. Workers from the John J. Carroll Department Store had arrived to lay the linoleum she had purchased. She had also ordered some curtains from Mary Welsch for the home. Mary had also arrived that morning with her daughter Ruby to hang them. Jane got in her car and headed downtown. Even through the gloom of the rain, she was anxious to get home and see how nice it would look with her new flooring and drapes.
Unfortunately, the gloom of the day wouldn’t pass for these people as they would be the principal participants in the worst military airplane crash in the history of Licking County.
Doug Stout is the Veterans Project Coordinator for the Licking County Library. You may contact him at 740-349-5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org. The Libraries DVD “When Death Came to Newark the B-25 Bomber Crash of 1942" is available for purchase at the downtown Newark library.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Veterans: Infamous flight leaves Dayton ahead of 1942 Newark crash
