Haley W. Skinner
Haley W. Skinner Service # 0-428537 Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces 13th Pursuit Squadron, 53rd Pursuit Group Entered the Service from: Kansas Awards: Purple Heart NARA War Department records list this soldiers Home of Record as Nemaha County, Kansas…Finding Of Death…Perished in the sinking of USS EDSALL (DD-219) in Indian Ocean, southwest of Java…See additional cenotaph at Find A Grave Memorial# 56763445.
Inscription
1st LT 57 PURSUIT GP AA F
LOST IN THE PACIFIC AREA
WORLD WAR II PH
(from Find a Grave Memorial)Enlistment
Is Licensed Pilot
Haley Skinner, who has been a student in the flying course of the national school in Emporia, has his license as a pilot and is ready to fly if he can get hold of a plane. He has his required hours in th air as solo flier. Haley is at home with his parents for the summer vacation. If anyone has an airplane not in use he might offer it to Haley Skinner.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 11 Jul 1940, page 5
Fly To Emporia For Visit
Haley Skinner and Jack Sheldon returned to Sabetha March 8 after a few days visit in Emporia. The two drove to St. Joseph from where they flew a plane to Emporia. They came back via Sabetha, landing the plane in a wheat field at the southeast edge of town. Skinner flew on to St. Joseph on Sunday. The ship, a cub trainer, belongs to a Hiawatha flying club of which Skinner and Curtis Bockenstette are both members
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 17 March 1941, page 5
Haley Skinner Leaves Const.
Mr. and Mrs. Lou Skinner received a telephone message from their son Lieut Haley Skinner Sunday evening. Lieut. Skinner was in Lost Angeles, Calif. when he called. He told his mother he was leaving the west coast by boat and would leave on the following day which was Monday. Lieut. Skinner is a pursuit plane pilot.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 22 Jan 1942, page 7
Sabetha Flier Is Missing
Lieut. Haley Skinner Was on Langley
Sabetha Herald
The War Department has notified Mr and Mrs. L. E. Skinner of Sabetha that their son, Haley Skinner, a lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Corps, is missing. He was among those on the U. S. S. Langley when she was sunk south of Java on February 27 Announcement of the sinking was made in daily papers Saturday morning, the same day the Skinners were notified. Casualties in the sinking of the Langley, which went down as a result of bombing attack, were small, according to newspaper accounts. Survivors were transferred almost immediately to tanker Pecos. However, the next day the Pecos was bombed and sunk with an estimated loss of about two-thirds of the Langley survivors and the crew of the Pecos. The telegram received by the Skinners did not indicate whether or not Haley had been transferred to the Pecos, but simply stated he was missing from the Langley
The telegram received by Skinners arrived Saturday after-noon shortly after four o’clock and read as follows:
“Deeply regret to inform you that your son, Lieut. Haley William Skinner, United States Army, has been reported missing while in the service of his country aboard the U.S.S. Langley at sea. Further reports will be forwarded as received. The Adjutant General
All of Sabetha has been greatly concerned over the report. Haley is a particularly well liked boy by both older persons and those his own age. He has always been interested in aviation, and got started through a flying club at Hiawatha several years ago. Last summer he went through the rigorous air corps training course at Randolph Field, Texas. He was transferred to Selma, Ala., for final advanced training in pursuit ship work, upon –completion of which he was awarded his commission.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 9 April 1942, page 1
Sabetha Missing
Haley Skinner
Lieut. Haley Skinner, army air. corps, son of Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Skinner, Sabetha, is reported missing from the Langley, sunk in the battle of Java. This photo was taken at the time Lieut. Skinner graduated from Randolph Field, Texas.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 13 April 1942, page 6
Sabetha
No Word Of Haley Skinner
There has been no further word of Haley Skinner, son of Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Skinner of Sabetha, reported missing as an army air corps flier on board the USS. Langley, sunk south of Java. However, friends of the Skinners and of Haley, who was a lieutenant, are heartened by. such news stories as one that appeared recently of Walter Mitchell, who went down with both the Langley and the tanker Pecos, which picked up Langley survivors. Mitchell phoned his mother after the war de partment reported him missing from the Langley. The story did not tell how he phoned his mother nor how he was rescued.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 16 April 1942, page 7
Memorial Service Sunday for Lt. Haley Skinner
A memorial service for Lieut. Haley Skinner, Sabetha, will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:30 at the Congregational church, con-ducted by Rev. E. L. Baker. Lt. Skinner, a flier in the U. S. Army Air Corps, was reported missing following the sinking of the aircraft tender, U. S S. Langley, Feb. 27. Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Skinner were notified. April4. It is assumed Lt. Skinner was aboard the Langley to be transferred to a land air base somewhere in the vicinity of Java.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 23 April 1942, page 1
Sabetha
Haley Skinner Memorial Service.
The Congregational Church was filled to capacity Sunday afternoon with friends and relatives who gathered to pay tribute to Haley Skinner, reported missing from the U. S. S. Langley disaster at sea. The church chancel was beautifully decorated with vases and baskets of flowers and potted plants.
The Masonic order, of which Haley is a member, the Eastern Star chapter, Boy Scouts, American Legion, Kansas State Guard and American Legion Auxiliary members attended the service in a body.
The church choir and Miss Marian Spencer, organist, added to the beauty of the service with music appropriate to the occasion.
The service was conducted by: the Rev. E. L. Baker.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 4 May 1942, page 2
Sabetha
Langley Survivor Is Safe.
Friends of Haley Skinner, who was reported lost when the U. S. S. Langley and the tanker Pecos were lost near Java two months ago, are interested in the communication received Monday morning by M. L. Shetter, Hiawatha mechanic, that his son, a sailor on the Langley, who was reported missing and for whom memorial services were held at Hiawatha, is now safe and stationed in Australia. The sailor’s commander wrote that the boy, Warren G. Shetter, would communicate with his parents at his first opportunity, and that communications with forces in the southwest Pacific are strained and difficult.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 7 May 1942, page 7
War Department Continues Haley Skinner As Missing
The United States War Department reported 2nd Lt. Haley Skinner, Army Air Force fighter pilot and son of Mr. and Mrs. Lew Skinner of Sabetha, as missing in sea action on February 27, 1942. “In the course of the past year the Skinners have received several communications from the War Department regarding their son’s status. Among these was a statement that final disposal of the case would not be made until one year following the original date, of the action.
This date has passed, and Tues-day morning the Skinners received another communication from the department. It stated that since there is “no evidence warranting contrary action” that Lt. Skinner is being officially continued in the “missing” status. The letter says the case has been carefully reviewed, and that every effort has been made through the American Red Cross and the Japanese government to obtain information in such cases, but that “so far few reports have been received.”
The communication says that so long as the missing status is continued, pay, allowances and allotments also remain in effect.
Courier Tribune (Seneca, KS) 25 March 1943, page 8
Men In The Service
Haley Skinner Presumed Dead.
Mr and Mrs Lew Skinner of Sabetha have received a communication from the Adjutant General’s Office, War Department, that the case of their son, First Lieutenant William Haley Skinner, has been reviewed and a presumptive finding of death has been made as of De- cember 18, 1945 This means that for purposes of records, pay, insurance, and other official matters it is presumed that Lt. Skinner died on December 18, 1945 He was list- ed as missing on February 27, 1942.
The circumstances surrounding the absence of Lt Skinner and a group of army and navy personnel reported missing at the same time is intricate and, in many respects. unsatisfactorily incomplete. Haley became an army P-40 fighter pilot who, with his air group, was sent to Australia at the very first of the war, at the time the Japanese were making rapid conquest southward in the Pacific. This army fighter group volunteered to go to Tjilitjap, in southern Java. Half of the pilots were to fly to Java in their own fighter planes, the other half were to go aboard the aircraft tender, (formerly carrier) Langley. All of the ground crew personnel, along with equipment and P-40 fighter planes and half the pilots were aboard the Langley. The pilots flipped coins to determine which should fly, which should go on the Langley. Haley Skinner happened to be in the group that went on the Langley. The ship was unescorted but two destroyers, the Whipple and the Edsall, answered an S O. S. from the Langley when, 70 miles from her destination the Langley was attacked by air and had to be abandoned. All personnel were at first taken aboard the Edsall, but later the navy personnel were transferred to the Pecos, a navy tanker. The army ground erewomen and pilots remained on the Edsall. The next day the Pecos was sunk. Her S O.S was answered by the Whipple, but not by the Edsall. The Edsall was never again heard from directly and definitely, but Lew Skinner has received some information that appears to indicate it is possible the Edsall might have put in at Tjilitjap. There is a discrepancy in dates and verification is not certain.
The Japanese were moving southward rapidly, and Tjilitjap was overrun at this time. and the port ordered evacuated by all allied personnel. It was not possible to evacuate all, and many were known to have taken to the hills and the interior, later joining or forming guerilla bands as was done in the Philippines. It is believed possible the Edsall might have put in to Tjilitjap, disembarked its army personnel and put out to sea before being lost. There is the further chance that such men, because of scant communications and the dense interior, might have fled the coast and still be alive without connection with the outside world. These circumstances have caused the extended period of delay during which Lt. Skinner and the others in his group have been continued on the War Department’s records as missing.
O D. H Bentley of Dover, Mass, is the father of one of the army fliers in the group with Haley Skinner. Bentley has kept in constant communication with next of kin of many of those listed as missing from the Langley and the Edsall, including the Lew Skinners of Sabetha. Mr Skinner last week received letter number 380 from Mr. Bentley concerning the situation. He has made exhaustive investigation of the circumstances, and Mr. Skinner believes he may know as much or more about the situation as the War Department. In this most recent letter, dated December 26, Mr Bentley says “The War Department no doubt was advised to make a finding in regard to all the boys who have been carried in the missing status. It does not mean anything definite, one way or the other, excepting a technical settlement or adjustment of their accrued accounts, etc. I am not giving up yet.”The Sabetha Herald (Sabetha, KS) 2 Jan 1946, page 1
The May 31, 2006 issue of the Sabetha Herald contains a feature story about Lt. Haley Skinner.
Unaccounted for Remains
Manilla Memorial
