Honoring Service: Fallen Veteran Henry B. Stimson Jr., World War II
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Henry B. Stimson Jr. was the son of Henry Bartlett and Isabelle McBirney Stimson. His father served as President of the Board of the Rye Country Day School and was a member of Christs Church in Rye. Henry was a direct descendent of Richard Bartlett, who came to Massachusetts from England in 1633 and Dr. Joseph Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence from Massachusetts. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War during World War II, was a second cousin. In the 1930s Henry Jr. lived in Rye at 14 Mendota Lane. Henry studied at Andover Academy and later graduated from Deerfield Academy and attended Yale. Henry served as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
Date of Birth: 1918
Died On: 30 October 1943
Street Address: 14 Mendota Ave
Branch of Service: U.S. Army Air Corps
Henry enlisted in the US Naval Aviation Reserve in Chicago on September 9th, 1941. He later completed additional and advanced training at Shreveport, Louisiana and earned his wings as a Cadet in the US Army Air Force and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant at Shelby, Alabama. Henry was then sent to the Army Air Field at Greenville, Mississippi to serve as an instructor in Basic and Instrument Flying.
On October 30, 1943, Henry was killed while taking a Cadet on a combat training flight in a BT-13, six miles from Shelby, Mississippi. The Vultee BT-13 Valiant Basic Trainer was a two-seat low-winged monoplane with a 450 horsepower engine. At the time, the Army Air force and the US Naval Aviation Squadrons were growing so fast, that during several months of the war, more soldiers were dying in training missions than in the actual theaters of war.
Lt. Henry Bartlett Stimson Jr. was survived by his parents; two sisters who were married earlier in 1944, Mary Molly Campbell Stimson who married Walter Bareiss of Zurich, Switzerland and Alice Bartlett Stimson who married USNR Lt. Walter A. Raleigh Jr. , a classmate of Lt. Stimsons at Yale, as well as a younger brother Hugh McBirney Stimson. His mother, Isabelle continued to live in Rye at 19 Boxwood Lane until her passing in 1978.
