Eighty years ago, while World War II was raging in Europe, the military carved 683 acres out of the state forest on the Vineyard to create the United States Naval Auxiliary Facility.
After eighty-four consecutive years of existence the Dukes County Agricultural fair will be discontinued, for this year at least. State premiums have been cut to a minimum, and the receipts normally expected from the gate and other sources of revenue are not expected to be sufficient to cover expenses. Such was the announcement made by George G. Gifford, secretary of the association, yesterday. Charles G. Norton is the president of the association.
A team of munitions surveyors from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has confirmed the discovery of a World War II-vintage Helldiver buried off Chappaquiddick.
With the recent discovery of World War II-era bomber buried at Cape Pogue, the clandestine history of the Island’s involvement in World War II has come to the surface too.
Excerpted from Martha’s Vineyard in World War II by Thomas Dresser, Herb Foster and Jay Schofield, an account by airman Joseph McLaughlin after flying over Vineyard waters during training exercises.
Researchers believe they have found fragments from a World War II-era bomber plane that crash-landed in the frigid waters off Chappaquiddick during a doomed practice dive in the winter of 1946.
Announcement has been made of the acquisition of 683 acres of land on the state reservation near West Tisbury by the federal government for an air field. The transfer has been made from the state to the federal government for one dollar.
Some of the mainland reports have referred to the site as a naval field, but it is believed here that it may be the emergency field surveyed by the army last summer. No one on the Island could supply definite information yesterday.
United States Marine Corps Capt. Eugene DeFelice (Ret.), now 97, is one of a handful of World War II veterans who are still around to tell their story.
