It is always fascinating to me how far an article I’ve written for our local news magazines can travel. In October of 2021, I wrote about two navy planes that crashed while doing practice maneuvers over Mary’s Pond. Recently, I received an email from Eric Wiberg who is involved with an organization that looks for the lost aircraft of World War II.
Hearing that a loved one, fighting in a war, is missing in action after his plane has crashed is one step away from the horror of learning that he or she has been killed. As I have mentioned before, scrapbooks kept by Rochester residents in the 1940’s contain many newspaper clippings concerning local servicemen. There are two clippings I found that tell of two Rochester pilots shot down over Italy and who were listed as missing in action. Fortunately for their families, they were later discovered in German prisoner of war camps.
Not all plane crashes happened in combat. Another Rochester flier died when his plane crashed during training in Louisiana. The crash over Mary’s Pond is another example of a training tragedy. Back to Mr. Wiberg who wrote to tell me of a naval pilot, Lt. j. g. Arthur J. Cassidy (1919-3/30/43.)
Lt. Cassidy flew with the Fighting Squadron 41 in Operation Torch during the invasion of North Africa and survived two mishaps in that campaign. Back in the U.S., he married Marie Magdalaine Marchesseault in Cranston in March of 1943. That same month he was on a mission on the aircraft carrier, USS Ranger CV-4, 100 miles SW of Cape Ann/Gloucester to Quonset airport near Newport.
In his single engine Grumman F4-F Wildcat along with the other pilots on the USS Ranger, he launched from the carrier to escape an upcoming blizzard. Both he and his plane were never seen again.
Mr. Wiberg is interested in any sightings of plane wreckage that might have been sighted in any of our ponds, bogs or swamps at any time since 1943. If anyone has heard of any such discoveries over the years, his email is cmsmailer@civicplus.com.
By Connie Eshbach