Leslie A. Porter Jr.
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Force
O-693405
387th Combat Crew Training School
Born: February 9, 1921
Died: March 26, 1944
Near Floydada, Texas
Buried: Plot P-C 226
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio, Texas
Introduction
Second Lieutenant Leslie A. Porter Jr.
Second Lieutenant Leslie A. Porter Jr. was born on February 9, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Leslie A. and Elsie Porter. His father worked as a clerk for the Bell Telephone Company, and the family also included a younger brother, John. He grew up in Oaklyn, New Jersey, where the family owned a home at 225 Manheim Avenue. A 1938 graduate of Collingswood High School, he took part in school plays during his junior and senior years. In his yearbook, he stated that he enjoyed bowling, dancing, and driving, and disliked “English and wise guys.”
Leslie Porter enlisted in the Army Air Corps on June 10, 1942, and was ordered to report for active duty on December 4, 1942. He was sent to the classification center at San Antonio, Texas, where he began his training, and was commissioned as a pilot and Second Lieutenant on October 1, 1943. He was then sent to Transition School at Fort Worth, Texas, where he graduated as a pilot of four-engine bombers.
On March 26th, 1944, while on a routine formation flight from Peterson Field at Colorado Springs, Colorado, to a base in Texas, the B-24 Liberator bomber he was flying in crashed near Floydada, Texas. The entire crew was lost. Besides Leslie Porter, those lost included Second Lieutenant Donald Novak, Second Lieutenant James A. Garvey, Second Lieutenant Frank Cziguth, and Staff Sergeant Pedro S. Messa, Staff Sergeant James M. Driver, and Sergeants James M. Miller, Harvie S. Vance, and George L. Thomas.
The death of Leslie Porter was reported in the March 23, 1944, evening edition of the Camden Courier-Post. On March 30, 1944, the Courier-Post reported that Leslie Porter and his crew would be buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. On April 3rd, 1944, Leslie Porter and his crew were buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery with full military honors. Memorial services were held on April 3, 1944, at the Oaklyn Baptist Church on East Bettlewood Avenue. He was survived by his parents; his wife, the former Miss Eleanor Kipp, of Collingswood, New Jersey; and a brother, John Porter, then a private training with a parachute unit at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Photos
Leslie A. Porter Jr. — Military portrait; 1938 Collingswood High School yearbook photo; in flight gear
A Letter From Leslie Porter
Letter from Leslie A. Porter Jr.
Well, Friday I finally managed to get off the ground. We flew early in the morning and it sure did feel good to get my hands on the throttles and feel the controls once again. It has been a whole month since I have been up. It means quite a bit to a pilot to get back up there. There is something about it you can’t keep away from. After you have spent a few hundred hours up there everything changes, your thoughts and manners. Most of the hours are spent all alone and it is quite a different world than we all know down here. You have time to think and figure things out. There is nothing about you but a pure clean world that hasn’t been soiled by the corruptness of people and their ideals. All around there is an endless expanse that makes you feel good and clean down inside. You can feel a nearness to something that is a little bigger than you are. You may be all alone and yet you feel that someone is with you. I guess that is what people call God. It isn’t exactly a fear of something, it’s a close feeling to someone real. Sometimes I actually feel sorry for people who are earthbound and don’t fly, people who have never experienced such a solitary feeling. Some of the things we see are beautiful and beyond comprehension. Sometimes I feel as if I have been privileged with a glimpse into what lies after this life. Because of this feeling I have no fear of going into combat. If anything should ever happen to me I will know what to expect. These are some of my thoughts and feelings that I have when I’m sitting behind the controls high above the earth in my ship. I hope you don’t mind me saying those things but I think people who don’t fly sometimes wonder what a pilot does up there. I know I often wondered.
Oaklyn Flier Dies With 8 in Bomber
Camden Courier-Post —
Porter Pilot of Army Plane in Texas Crash; Joined Service in 1942
Lt. Leslie A. Porter, Jr., 23, of 225 Manheim avenue, Oaklyn, was pilot of an Army Liberator bomber which crashed and burned Sunday night near Floydada, Tex., killing himself and eight other airmen.
The B-24 had taken off from Peterson Field, Colorado Springs, where Lt. Porter was recently assigned after organizing a crew in Salt Lake City.
Announcement of victims of the crash, cause of which is not known, was made last night from Colorado Springs by Col. William Lewis, Jr., station commandant.
Lt. Porter was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie A. Porter, Sr., and joined the Army Cadet Corps in June, 1942. He was called to active service in the Air Corps on December, 1942, and was sent to San Antonio, Tex., for training. From there he was transferred to Chickasaw, Okla., thence to Garden City, Kans. and from there back to Texas where he graduated with his wings on Oct. 1, 1943.
After receiving his wings, Porter returned home for a brief visit and then went to Salt Lake City.
He was married in April, 1942, the day Doolittle bombed Tokio, to Miss Eleanor Kitt, of West Collingswood, who is in Colorado Springs. Before entering the service Lt. Porter worked locally as an auto salesman and later with the Platt and La Pate Aircraft Company in Eddystone, Pa. He attended Oaklyn schools and Collingswood High School and had training in Diesel engineering.
Lt. Porter’s father is a telephone installation man for the Bell Telephone Company, attached to the company’s Upper Darby branch.
The Porters have another son, John B., 21, who was a member of the Army Medical Corps before Pearl Harbor, but who gave up a sergeantcy [sic] recently to become a private in a transfer to the paratroopers. He is now in training at Fort Benning, Ga.
Crash victims in the bomber in addition to Lt. Porter are:
Second Lt. Donald Novak, Throop, Pa.; Second Lt. James A. Garvey, N. Y.; Second Lt. Frank P. Cziguth, Allentown, Pa.
Staff Sgt. Pedro S. Messa, Houston, Tex.; Sgt. Joseph M. Miller, Chicago; Sgt. Hervie S. Vance, Kernersville, N. C.; Sgt. George L. Thomas, Cochranville, Pa. and Staff Sgt. James L. Driver, Memphis, Tenn.
Bomber Crash Claims Lives of Nine Aviators
Floyd County Hesperian (Floydada, Texas) —
Floydada and Floyd county people are just beginning to regain their poise this mid-week following the crash-explosion of an Army Air corps bomber Sunday night 2½ miles west of Floydada and the violent death of its crew members, either nine or 10 men, after a losing fight with the elements. The machine was officially listed as a B-24 Liberator bomber on a routine training cruise from Peterson field at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Seen by scores and heard by hundreds as the gallant young airmen struggled to save their plane, the huge machine apparently developed engine trouble in the vicinity of Floydada, last [sic] a 30-foot wing tip 1½ miles west of Floydada on the farm operated by B. C. Hindsley and plunged to the ground violently within seconds on the Lee Trice farm 2½ miles west of town.
Result of any investigation by the air corps is not due to be made public. Local opinion is agreed that the violent explosion which scattered plane parts and dismembered bodies over some 50 acres of ground and sliced out a 100-foot slit, four feet deep in the earth, occured [sic] after the plane had plummeted to the ground. A lighter explosion, according to some viewers in the open, occured [sic] while the plane was still in the air.
Summoned Medical Aid
Bert Massie, who lives within two miles of the scene of the accident, heard the unusual noise of the plane and was in his yard watching as it manuevered [sic] in the air. His first thought as it struck the earth was to summon medical aid. Later he and his father W. M. Massie, went to view possible grass fire damage from the flares dropped by the airmen. This was found to be negligible or none on their lands.
W. M. Dyer, member of a local flying club with some experience in the air, estimated the height of the plane when he first saw it at 700 to 900 feet. He looked on as the huge bomber took its fatal plunge. Others thought the plane barely missed the high voltage lines over the northwest part of Floydada.
B. C. Hindsley said he was in bed when he heard the plane. He jumped to the floor as he heard a noise as of the engine being [illegible]. He reached his door in time to see the plane strike the ground and explode. Hindsley, on request, guarded the 30-foot wing tip which fell in a shallow lake 100 yards west of his barn.
Plane fell at 9:10
Night Officer Roy Wood, who was on his rounds when the crash came, said the time was approximately 9:10, according to his schedule. He was looking toward the crash when it came. He thought it was a house burst into flames until he heard the roar some seconds after the fire flared up. (See PLANE CRASH, back page)
Order Quickly Restored
Hundreds of people, possibly thousands, who were aware of the crash almost as it happened had the same idea—to rush to the scene and render what aid they could. Quickly they were in a traffic jam that extended almost from the city limits to and surrounding the Trice farm. Succor or help was found to be impossible. Volunteers aided in maintaining a semblance of order for the brief period it took Company G of the State Guard to organize and take over. Captain T. P. Collins and Lt. Harry Morckel were early on the scene and sized up the need for control of the crowd and patrol of the grounds. Captain Collins notified South Plains Army Air field, from whence crews and men came over Monday morning to take charge. By late Tuesday the grounds had been cleared.
Only announcement made by the army was contained in a two-paragraph item released through news agencies from Colorado Springs, which gave the names of nine men.
As late as Tuesday curious people from a wide radius were still attempting to view the scene of the crash, but were turned away by the guards while salvage crews cleaned up the broken bits of plane and bodies of men.
The list of dead as released by the station commandant at Peterson field, Colorado is as follows:
Second Lt. Leslie A. Porter, jr., Oakland, N. J.; Second Lt. Donald Novak, Throop, Pa.; Second Lt. James A. Garvey, New York; Second Lt. Frank P. Cziguth, Allentown, Pa.; Sgt. Pedro S. Messa, Houston, Texas; Sgt. Joseph M. Miller, Chicago; Sgt. Harvie S. Vance, Kernersville, N. C.; Sgt. George L. Thomas, Cochranville, Pa.; and Sgt. James L. Driver, Memphis, Tenn.
Response and co-operation of the public when Company G took over the premises at the suggestion and with the aid of Sheriff Lee Howard and other local officials, was marvelous, said Captain T. P. Collins, commanding. The accident occurred probably at 9:10.
By 10:30 o’clock the guard had been assembled and were patrolling the area, and the crowd, although horrified, and morbidly curious following the spectacular accident, were co-operative and helpful in every way. At no time was there any unruliness or panic or hesitancy in obeying orders of the guard.
Pays Boys a Compliment
Co-operation, good common sense, and promptness of the Floydada unit of the Texas State guard, came in for praise here Tuesday from Major Jack Payne, who was in Floydada from South Plains Army Air field.
He expressed to Guard members appreciation of the commendable way in which the guard company functioned. It was a bad night out but the army did not take over until the early morning of Monday the guard members handling the situation in weather that was below freezing and with a stiff wind blowing.
Lt. Harry Mockrel said that after he ordered the call sounded for the guard to assemble at the armory he met men in uniform and ready for service as he reached the armory himself.
Record of Deaths
Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics — Record of Deaths: Leslie A. Porter Jr.