Mark K. Lewis

Major • U.S. Army Air Forces • Serial O-016816

Entered service from New Jersey • Died December 9, 1941

Buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia

Major Mark Kincaid Lewis was born in 1902, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Mark K. Lewis. His father was the Auditor of Passenger Traffic for the Pennsylvania Railroad, retiring in 1935, and had also served as president of the Maple Shade NJ school board from 1922 through 1927. The family, including his father and two sisters, was living in Merchantville in 1930. Major Lewis was a 1921 graduate of Moorestown (NJ) High School and of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1927.

Major Lewis served under General Douglas MacArthur and directly under General Dwight D. Eisenhower while in the Philippines, where he was responsible for training Filipino pilots and flight crews. His off-post address was that of his sister, Mrs. James A. Welham, of 29 W. Walnut Avenue, Merchantville NJ. He was also survived by his wife, Mary, and daughters Carra Lee and Mary Anna, who lived with Major Lewis in military housing at Langley Field, Virginia; his father (who passed away on August 1, 1945) of 49 East Coulter Avenue, Collingswood NJ; and another sister, Mrs. Katherine Bennett, also of Collingswood.

Major Lewis was killed on December 9, 1941—two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—when the B-26 medium bomber he was piloting crashed near Fort Bliss TX. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery and memorialized on the Merchantville NJ War Memorial.