Death in a Turnip Field

            

             Mrs. Estelle Phillips, a 32-year-old mother of six children, was working in a 40-acre turnup field one day near Robertsdale, Alabama in late March 1941, when an airplane swooped down and sliced her head off. The aircraft left a 6-inch-deep furrow in the ground from a wingtip and a small boy was also injured. Later folks in an adjoining field reported that the aircraft had made dives at them too.

            The police were called to the scene and took eyewitness reports and it wasn’t long before their investigation crossed paths with an investigation out of Corry Field in Pensacola concerning a Boeing Stearman trainer aircraft that had returned to base with damage. Two Naval Ensigns who had just recently graduated flight training and were named instructor pilots were taken into custody.

            Ensign Paul C. Brown, from Chicago, who was the pilot that day, and Ensign Joseph C. Thompson, from Healdsburg California, were court-martialed. They were convicted of Involuntary Manslaughter. Brown was sentenced to 24 months, and Thompson got a 12-month sentence. Both were to be served at the prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

            The Federal Government gave $5000 to Mrs. Phillips’s husband and six children for compensation which even though it was 1941, doesn’t seem nearly enough.

            The two culprits in this case only served 5 months and Brown got married four days after he was released in New York City. In a newspaper from December 1942, I found an article saying that Thompson had a job instructing Naval Cadets at Plumas County airport near Beckwith, California.

            Hopefully, Mr. Thompson taught the young cadets about the fatal consequences of childish displays of bravado when your ego outweighs your talent.