WW2 Fallen - Hellcat Fighter Pilot Robert Stimson

Hellcat pilot Lt. Robert Stimson was a Naval Academy graduate.
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=stimson&GSfn=robert&GSby=1917&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=73196817&df=all
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Robert Charles Stimson never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

He was born on May 27, 1917 in Ohio. His parents were also both born in Ohio. His father worked as a bank teller and later as an assistant cashier. Robert had one older sister and one younger sister. By 1940 Robert was completing his final year as a midshipman at the US Naval Academy.

His first assignment was the assistant navigator for the battleship USS Idaho. While on leave in October 1940 he married Antonia Skiles in Arizona. He transferred to the new battleship USS Washington which was commissioned in May 1941. He saw duty escorting convoys in the Atlantic. A highlight of his service on the Washington was meeting the king of England during an inspection. In October 1942 he transferred to the air arm of the navy and earned his wings on his 26h birthday in 1943. I am not sure where he served for the next year of the war. Most likely he would have been a carrier based pilot in the Pacific Theater.

In early April 1944 Lt. Stimson transferred from Daytona Beach, Florida where he was a divebomber pilot trainer to Charleston, Rhode Island. On the night of April 17 he was practicing formation night flying in his F6F-3 Hellcat fighter when his plane crashed into another plane. Both pilots were killed. He had a 2 1/2 year old daughter and a 2 month old son, Robert Charles Stimson, Jr.

His remains were returned to be buried at Shelby-Oakland Cemetery in Shelby, Ohio.

Thank you Robert for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Robert. His wife remarried after Robert died. She died in 1956 and their son died in 1961. I am not sure what became of his daughter who would be 76 years old now.

Thanks to Darillyn Lamb Starr for recommending that Robert be profiled.


On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

To mark having over 100,000 visits to my project to honor the fallen of WW2 on their 100th birthdate, I created this video to share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY

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