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 Flight
Officer
Eugene Fontinell (1924-2009) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on May 22, 1924 to Helen Burke
and Ernest Fontinell. After graduating from Scranton High School in February
1942, Lieutenant Fontinell took a job welding in the Sun Shipyard in
Chester, Pennsylvania. On December 11, 1942 he joined the Army Air Corps in
Philadelphia and on February 17, 1943 he he boarded a train in Philadelphia
and headed for Miami, Florida where he would attend pre-basic training. He
did not have a class date, so the pre-basic would help prepare him for his
basic training. After two months of training, Cadet Fontinell was again on a
train, but this time he was headed North. He arrived in Ohio, where he spent
three to four months training and then headed out to San Antonio, Texas
(Ellington Field) where he attended his Army Air Corps basic training. He
graduated from Flight training on his birthday, May 22, 1944. He joined the
Second Emergency Rescue Squadron in August 1944 on Morotai. They had already
arrived there in July. He had not been trained on the
OA-10A Catalina, so he
flew C-47's until he was trained on the amphibious airplane by Captain Gerard
F. Wientjes, who also trained Lieutenant Arthur Carothers at the same time.
On 23 June 1945, Lieutenant Fontinell's first and only flight in the
Catalina, after a flip of a coin, flew co-pilot with Lieutenant Carothers
flying as pilot. They planned to alternate after the next flight.
Unfortunately, on their take-off run after the rescue, crashed head on into
a wave, tearing the ship apart and catapulting himself and others into the
sea. (Read mission report) Lieutenant Fontinell was sent stateside on leave
after this accident, but while there, the atomic bomb was dropped, and he
was told to stay there. He was separated from the service in North Carolina
in October 1945.
After separating from the
service, Gene enrolled in the University of Scranton, which luckily was on
trimesters, that began in October. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in
Liberal Arts in 1948, and promptly started his graduate program at Fordham
University in New York City earning his Masters degree in Philosophy. He
earned his Ph.D. in 1956 and began teaching at Iona College in New Rochelle,
New York where he remained for six years. Doctor Fontinell then accepted a
teaching position at Queen's College in New York City where he taught
Philosophy from 1962 until he retired in 1991. He has had two books
published (Toward a Reconstruction of Religion) and (Self God & Immortality)
Doctor Fontinell has no
children, and lived in the Bronx until he passed away on March 16, 2009 .
You can read his obituary
HERE.
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