Robert S. Hart

Sergeant Robert S. Hart was born on December 9, 1920, the son of Darlington Cope Hart and Sarah Florence Stanton Hart. His father was a jeweler who operated a jewelry store at 309 Broadway in Camden from the 1920s to the early 1950s. The Harts had moved to New Jersey from Fulton County, Pennsylvania and settled in the Parkside section, at 1114 Langham Avenue, around 1915. The family also had ties to Pasadena, California, where Sarah Hart’s parents, the Stantons, resided. Besides Robert — known to friends and family as “Bob” — there were brother Neal L. Hart, and sisters Marian, Beatrice, and Ruth. He attended the Cooper B. Hatch Junior High School in 1934 and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School on Federal Street in Camden NJ in 1938. Quiet by nature, he was known as a fast runner, clocking 10.9 seconds in the 100-yard dash, though he did not participate in Track or many other extracurricular activities.

Sergeant Hart enlisted in the United States Army in August of 1942 and was called to active duty on January 7, 1943. He qualified for flight duty and was trained in aerial gunnery and as a radio operator. While attending radio school at Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1943, he met and fell in love with a local girl, Miss Dorothy Johnson. They became engaged and were to be married before he went overseas.

Sergeant Robert S. Hart was killed in an accident involving a moving aircraft propeller at Biggs Field, Texas on February 25, 1944. Partially sedated from flight medicine, he stumbled near the propeller and was fatally injured. He had recently written home that Miss Johnson was to join him and that they were to be wed, as he was due to go overseas soon.

Robert Hart was returned to New Jersey and buried in Harleigh Cemetery in Camden NJ. He was survived by his parents; sisters Mrs. George Krautter of Brooklyn, NY and Mrs. Samuel G. Wyatt of Camden; and brother Neal Hart, who was then serving as an Aviation Cadet stationed at San Marcos, Texas. His death was reported in the March 1, 1944 evening edition of the Camden Courier-Post.