Navy LTjg George Marvin Campbell was born in Madras, Oregon on January 7, 1907, the son of John Edward and Sarah Alice Rodman Campbell. His father raised cattle for a living to support his wife and seven children in the turn of the century economy. George would leave home on June 27, 1928, to join the US Navy at the age of 21-years old. While stationed in Pensacola he met and married a young girl in 1930 by the name of Miss Genevieve Thompson, the daughter of Joseph Jr. and Eva Thompson. Her father was a machine operator at a local wood yard while her mother worked as a nursemaid for a private family.
After Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for flight training in 1942 and earned his cherished wings on the April 2nd of that same year. With his wife settled in Warrington at 1410 Wilson Avenue, and with very little training or experience, he joined the VT-8 Squadron aboard the USS Hornet just in time to take part in the Midway battle. On June 4, 1942, experienced or not, he and his gunner ARM2c Ronald Joseph Fisher followed their commanding officer and comrades heroically into the jaws of death, never flinching from their patriotic duty to the very end. Facing impossible odds, they fell into formation, picked their targets, and began their torpedo runs. With Japanese fighters attacking them from above, and enemy antiaircraft gunners blasting away from below, they each died one by one. Not one aircraft from Torpedo Squadron #8 survived.
But ironically, their sacrifice won America one of the greatest victories in military history. When the American dive bombers arrived, there were no enemy fighters around to impede their sinking of all four Japanese carriers, thus changing the direction of the entire war! After the battle, 27-year-old Genevieve and all the other VT-8 wives received one of the dreaded telegrams from the War Department stating that their husbands were gone. Genevieve would be one of the first in a long line of young Pensacola women that would be receiving those heart stopping telegrams during the war. She bought and proudly displayed a single gold star in her window showing that a serviceman living there had given his life for his country. Her husband would receive the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart.
In honor of his sacrifice, the Navy commissioned the destroyer DE-773, USS George M. Campbell after the heroic pilot. But even this honor was not to be for the hapless aviator. The ships construction was cancelled in September 1944, and she was stripped for spare parts and later scrapped.
Click here for video of VT-8: https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2017/06/01/the-battle-of-midway-and-torpedo-squadron-8-a-memorial-to-a-fallen-unit/
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