Flier Loses Life in Mock Aerial Flight

Death of Everett Pilot in Strait of Juan de Fuca Marks Second Day of Maneuvers in Northwest Area

Seattle, Oct. 30.-(AP)-Bursting into flames in midair, an army P-36 pursuit plane plunged into the Strait of Juan de Fuca five miles off Dungeness point today while attacking two navy patrol bombers in the Northwest’s aircraft-warning exercises. The pilot, Second Lieut. Francis Cox, from South Dakota, was killed.

The command’s headquarters here said Lieut. Cox was assigned to the 56th Pursuit Squadron at Paine Field, Everett.

Crew members of the fishing vessel Roosevelt, who witnessed the crash, said the plane fell into the sea immediately after bursting into flames.

One of the patrol bombers landed nearby and removed Lieutenant Cox’s body, bringing it to the Sand Point naval air station here.

Firs Accident to Occur

The accident was the first during the four-day exercises over Western Washington and Western Oregon, which began yesterday.

Meanwhile, a direct warning that “Portland and Seattle will be attacked by all available bombers today” went out from Brig. Gen. Carlyle H. Wash, commanding officer, this forenoon at the start of a second day of widespread air maneuvers of the 2nd Interceptor command.

“The attack on Portland will begin sometime after 11 a.m., and the one on Seattle after 3 p.m.,” General Wash said. “It will bring our first big tests as we try to break up the attacks.”

With a lifting of the clouds and foggy weather of the past few days, the army’s aircraft-warning exercises of 50 bombers and between 90 and 100 pursuit ships swung into full activity. The bombers were based at McChord Field and at Portland, and the pursuit ships at five different points, Paine Field, McChord and Olympia, in Washington State, and at Portland and Saturn, Oregon.

Daily Chronicle, Centralia, WA 30 Oct 1941
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Transcribed by June. Thanks June!