Harvey D. Johnson
Rank: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Force
Serial: O-995412
Entered service from: New Jersey
Died:
Awards: Distinguished Flying Cross
Biography
Second Lieutenant Harvey D. Johnson was born in Atlantic City NJ around 1918 to Rufus and Rita Johnson. His parents had separated by 1930, and Harvey was raised by his father, who in 1930 was managing a candy factory. He graduated from Pleasantville High School and was attending Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia at the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II.
Harvey Johnson had wanted to be a pilot since boyhood. Washed out of the Army Air Force program, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, qualified as a fighter pilot there, and was later transferred back to the United States’ own Army Air Force.
Harvey Johnson was killed when his plane, which had been disabled, crashed into a vacant lot near London, England. Johnson rode his plane down rather than bail out and chance that the plane would crash into a residential neighborhood, thus sacrificing his own life to save those of innocent civilians.
Second Lieutenant Harvey D. Johnson was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroic actions. He was survived by his father, Rufus Johnson, who had volunteered and was then serving in the North Atlantic with the Merchant Marine, and his mother, who had remarried, Mrs. Edna Morley, of Westville NJ.
Plaque Hails Hero Killed in Air Crash
Camden Courier-Post —
Westville Officer Lost Life in London Suburb Saving Periled Houses
Citizens yesterday awarded a plaque posthumously to Second Lieut. Harvey D. Johnson, of Westville, who crashed his fighter plane on a vacant lot in London’s industrial suburb of Walthamstow last Nov. 22, a news dispatch from the British capital reported.
At the same time, Col. Stewart M. Towle, chief of staff of the Eighth U. S. Army Air Force Fighting Command, announced Johnson was being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Lieutenant Johnson’s father, Rufus, is on the North Atlantic as a merchant seaman. His mother, Mrs. Edna Morley, lives at 504 Broadway, Westville.
Johnson stayed with his plane to keep it from crashing into a row of houses. He could have bailed out and saved his own life.
More than 3000 persons gathered for the ceremony. The plaque will be forwarded to Johnson’s parents.
Johnson sacrificed his own life only a month after he had achieved his life’s ambition — to become a pilot in the U. S. Army. Washed out of the Army Air Corps two years before because of nervousness, he enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force, made the grade, and was transferred to his own Army.
Born in Atlantic City, he had wanted to be a flier ever since boyhood. He was graduated from Pleasantville High school and studied chemical engineering at Drexel Institute of Technology before making his first bid for the air forces.