Pages

9.30.2007

OCTOBER CASUALTIES

October 8, 1942 - Arthur Garrett

October 9, 1951 - Richard McConnell

October 10, 1918 - Joseph Lamb

October 12, 1918 - John Beaumont

October 14, 1918 - Bertam Townsend

October 15, 1918 - Winan Klesick

October 19, 1951 - Bernard Hafkin


October 21, 1942 - Francis Schwarzenbek

October 22, 1918 - Ray Blum

October 24, 1944 - Walter Stecewicz

October 24, 1918 - George Kalvio

October 1943 - Richard Van Divort

October 1958 - Edward Zuczek

9.27.2007

Claude Daw

(Oct. 12, 1918) Private Claude Henry Daw was killed in action September 27. Daw served four years with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces.

His mother, Mrs. Ellen Daw, of Princeton Street, received a telegram telling of her son's death from the Canadian government on Oct. 9.

During the first year of his service Daw was wounded severely once and shell-shocked once.

Daw was a member of the First Battalion First Division Canadian Expeditionary Force and had seen some of the worst fighting of the war during his four years of service.

One of his brothers, Ernest, is a sergeant major in the same battalion, while another brother, Richard C. Daw, is a member of an engineer regiment in the American Army. Both are in France.

He was 32 years old and leaves a wife and four year-old son.

9.20.2007

Robert Clendenning Jr.

(Oct. 20, 1944) - 1st Lt. Robert Clendinning of the Army Air Force, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Clendinning of 126 High Street has been reported killed in action Sept. 27 over England.

A telegram from the War Department provided no details to his wife Mrs. Bertha Schundler Clendinning. Their daughter Beth is now a year old.

Lt. Robert J. Clendinning, U.S. Air Force, 846th Bomber Squadron, 490th Bomber Group Large, received the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Purple Heart. He is buried at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, Plot E, Row 6, Grave 2.

9.18.2007

John Windheim

(September 21, 1945) - Lt. (jg) John Windheim Jr., U.S. Navy, was killed in an aircraft accident at Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Windheim, of 58 Vreeland avenue, have received no details.

Lt. Windheim was born in Nutley 24 years ago and attended local schools, graduating from Nutley High as an honor student in 1939. He was a member of the high school band. That same year he took his examinations for Annapolis, was named first alternate and on his 19th birthday he was sworn into the office.

In addition to his parents, he is survived by his sister, Elizabeth.

9.17.2007

Richard Bates Jr.

(Sept. 22, 1966) - Marine private Richard Stanley Bates Jr., 19, was killed Saturday in a Viet Cong ambush near Quangtri, Vietnam.

A Marine lieutenant visited both the home of Richard’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Bates of Margaret Ave., and a close aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Lester Newport of Spring Street.

The telegram said simply that Pfc. Bates died on Sept. 17 of multiple fragmentation wounds while engaged in action against hostile forces.

Bates had been involved in two combat missions prior to last week. So severe were the hardships imposed by those two military operations that his unit was sent back to the Philippines for a week’s rest.

9.16.2007

C. Lowell Liebau

(Oct. 6, 1944) - Anna Liebau of Franklin avenue was informed by telegram Monday that her son Lt. C. Lowell Liebau, 22, had been killed in action in France on Sept. 16.

Born in Nutley, Oct. 4, 1921, Lowell attended the local schools and was graduated from the high school as president of his class in February 1939.

Besides his mother, he leaves a sister Mrs. Jack Thelin, and his fiancée Miss Joan Pennington, of Carteret place.

9.15.2007

Robert Dickert

(Oct. 6, 1944) - Mrs. Margaret Dickert of 331 Park Avenue was informed by telegram Monday that her husband Pfc. Robert Dickert had been killed in action in France on Sept. 15.

9.10.2007

Robert Di Petta

(Nov. 10, 1944) - Mr. and Mrs. Sisto Di Petta of 9 Columbia Avenue, who were informed that their son, Aviation Ordnanceman 1/c Anthony Di Petta, was missing in action, have received a letter from his commanding officer, Lt. Commander S. L. Prickett, USN, telling that he was lost in an airplane crash at sea.

Young Di Petta who has served five years in the Navy was attached to a Torpedo Squadron of the Air Force when he was lost in action.

9.06.2007

Nicholas Pucci

Pfc. Nicholas S. Pucci, 18, died, Sept. 6, 1950, in Pusan, Korea.

Pucci, a son of Patrolman and Mrs. James V. Pucci of Woodland Avenue, was killed in action. He is Nutley's first casualty of the Korean War.

Pucci was a member of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

Pucci, who left Nutley High School in July 1949, to enlist in the Army, was killed while fighting with a heavy artillery unit of the First Division on the Taegu front.

A telegram from Army authorities announcing his death in action came to the family only a short time after a letter arrived from Korea, dated Aug. 27, asking for cookies and candy to sweeten his Army rations.

Pucci had been stationed briefly in Japan with the First Division before the Korean affair developed.

Pucci is survived by his parents, and two sisters, Mrs. Angelina Policastro and Mrs. Katherine Boston, both of Nutley.

Three months after Pucci's death, the Avondale and Big Tree Boys Club asked the town to help build a memorial in his honor in Father Glotzbach Park.

9.05.2007

Charles Tillou

(Sept. 25, 1958) -- Details have reached Nutley of the air accident which cost the life of 1st Lt. Charles Tillou, 24 son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Wesley Tillou of Rutgers Place, who was one of six Air Force men known to have been killed in a collision between an American transport plane and a French fighter plane near Paris.

The two planes; an Air Force C139 transport plane and a Mystero Jet, collided at Polsey on Friday with Lt. Tillou's wife, the former Miss Elizabeth Vandenberg, who had joined him in France, first learning of the air tragedy. She returned to this country by an Air Force plane soon after the accident and is now in Nutley.

Tillou was a member of the 41st Troop Carrier Squadron operating out of France.

Memorial services were conducted yesterday afternoon at St. Paul's Congregational Church and Evreux Air Force Base in France.

Lt. Tillou is the second Air Force officer from Nutley to be killed within a period of only three months.

In July, Lt. F. Paul Jannarone Jr., a pilot with the Strategic Air Command, was killed when a B-47 Stratojet bomber crashed into the side of a mountain in Vermont.

Lt. Tillou, a navigator, volunteered for the fatal mission. He was the navigator aboard the American transport plane on a flight from the air base at Evreux, France, to Spangdahlem, Germany.

Lt. Tillou entered the Air Force in January 1957, received his preliminary training at Lackland Air Force Base, in Texas, and received his navigator's wings at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, where he ranked second in the flight school graduating class.

He was sent overseas last April and his wife followed him to France two months later. The couple had been married only 14 months at the time of the fatal air crash.

Lt. Tillou was a life-long resident of Nutley and went through the public school system, having been graduated from Yanticaw elementary, and Nutley junior and senior high schools.

He was one of the most popular students in the Nutley High School class of 1952. Lt. Tillou was outstanding both as a student and as an athlete.

He started at third base on the Maroon baseball team and helped bulwark Nutley to the final round of the 1952 Greater Newark Tournament and Group 4 sectional honors.

Lt. Tillou was honored by being selected for the All-County baseball team and also served as captain of the Nutley basketball team. For his success in sports, Lt. Tillou was singled out by American Legion, Post 70, as the "Scholastic Athlete of the Year" for 1952.

Tillou went on to Colgate University and continued to combine his scholastic and athletic abilities. He was president of his senior class at Colgate, was president of the Senior Honor Society and as selected for "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities".

In sports, Tillou went on to star in soccer, an activity he had never played until going to college. He became one of the best players on the Colgate team and was named fullback on the All-East soccer team.

Lt. Tillou is also survived by a sister, Miss Carolyn Tillou, at home, and his paternal grandmother, Mrs. Charles W. Tillou. He was also the grandson of the late Mrs. and Mrs. Charles Caldwell and the late Dr. Charles W. Tillou.