USAAC 2Lt. Robert Douglas Campbell was born in Pensacola, Florida on October 1, 1917, the son of Pattillo "Tilla" Campbell (1875-1932) and Mary Gillis Morrison (1884-1963). His father supported the family as an attorney with an office at 40 1/2 South Palafox Street. He specialized as a referee in the US Bankruptcy Court until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1932. His family was living at 505 N. Guillemard Street at the time of his death. After his demise, Mary became a teacher at the Eliza Jane School located about where the Pensacola Civic Center is now. After graduating from Pensacola High School in 1934 (see News Journal 6-16-1944), Robert entered the work force in a variety of positions to include stenography and typing. By this time, the family had bought a home at 1608 East Maxwell Street valued at $3,500.
By 1940, his widowed sister Ann had moved in with he and his mother along with her two children. Ann was working for the social security office as a stenographer while his mother was a teacher for the Eliza Jane School. At the same time, Robert contributed to the family income as an assistant manager of the Goodyear Service Inc. service station. Two years later, Robert was working at NAS and married to Ernestine James Brown (1920-2007), Pensacola High Class of 1938. She was the daughter of a NAS plumber, Ernest Jacob Brown (1893-1934) and Antionette "Nettie" Kennedy (1986-1981). She became an assistant cashier at the Gulf Life Insurance Company while living at 3711 West Jackson Street with her infant son Robert D. Jr. (1941-1996).
He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps on March 30, 1942 at Ft. Barrancas, Florida. After his initial and advanced training, he was sent overseas and assigned to the 14th Air Force. This group fought primarily in China and contained the famous "Flying Tigers" who still conducted fighter and bomber operations. They were also responsible for supplying Chinese forces by flying across "the Hump" in the China-Burma-India area. Flying over the Himalayas was extremely dangerous because the moist warm air from the Indian Ocean to the south produced extremely high pressure that swept north, while cold dry air from Siberia came in from the south. These lows and highs were extreme and produced violent winds. When they hit the the world's tallest mountain range, they shot upward at startling speeds until they cooled and then rushed downward in terrifying drafts that drove airplanes down at a terrific rate of descent. Pilots reported being flipped upside down by the turbulence while many planes just disappeared. Thunderstorms also built suddenly without warning, creating an opaque world with zero visibility and frequent icing of a plane's wings.
Due to the above conditions, none of the pilots flying the "Hump" took anything for granted. What they wrote home to their wives and family about it will probably never be known. But regardless, a telegram was received one afternoon in February 1945 at his mother's house on East Maxwell. The War Department regretted to inform her that her husband was missing in action and they would keep her informed of any future developments. As the story goes, Campbell had taken off on the morning of January 25, 1945 on a flight from his airfield in India heading for China with a load of valuable supplies. His co-pilot was none other than Pensacolian James Tulley Cunningham Jr., a Pensacola High classmate of 1937. Sadly, Cunningham's mother Jessie was receiving the same telegram as Mary Campbell at about the same time.
Four months later, two more telegrams were received stating that ice had formed on the wings of Cunningham and Campbell's plane sending the aircraft plunging into the mountains below. Of the six-man crew, all but one had been killed. The lone survivor had bailed out before impact. Cunningham and two of the crew were found and buried in a common grave at the Schofield Barracks Cemetery on Oahu, Hawaii. It is not known if Lt. Robert Douglas Campbell was ever found although there is a gravestone or memorial located at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (aka the Punchbowl Cemetery). Ernestine would marry in 1954 to Woodrow W. Moulton, the owner of Warrington Pharmacy since 1934.
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