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Yahoo!Lacing the present airport domain, which is surrounded by the City of Goleta but owned by the City of Santa Barbara, are streets bearing names such as Frederick P. Lopez, William G. Moffett, James Fowler, and a score of others. Few residents of Goleta or Santa Barbara today realize that these streets on the western edge of Old Town were named in 1948 after local military aviators who died during World War II. But airport director Karen Ramsdell and her staff know, and care about, that history.
They also know that sometimes history needs a little help to stay relevant to present generations. So, on a recent sunny spring afternoon, a black granite obelisk on the east side of the main runways was dedicated to the fallen pilots, including those who had no streets named after them. The compact, open-air setting with concrete benches, landscaping, and three flagpoles is designed for reflection, and the carved memorial stone bears 49 names to contemplate.
Representatives of all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, many of them veterans from World War II through Iraq and Afghanistan, were present. Colorful wreaths surrounded the obelisk, and the respectful ceremony included the reading of the names on the memorial, and brief accounts of the former Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara, which evolved into the current airport. USMC Brig. Gen. Frederick Lopez, who was born at the end of WW II and raised in Goleta, spoke about the Marine fighter pilots who trained, on this very ground, with F4U Corsairs for the war in the Pacific.
© Vic Cox
USMC Capt. (ret.) Ken "Lindy" Linder beside a model Corsair.
He said he had a personal bond to one of the pilots remembered by the monument. “Frederick P. Lopez was a boyhood friend of my dad’s,” Lopez said, “and I was named after him.” For a moment, I thought I detected a slight catch in the retired general’s voice—but I may have been mistaken.
The only person in the audience who had actually trained at the Marine Corps Air Station between its opening in 1942 and its closing in 1946 was Capt. Kenneth “Lindy” Linder, USMC (ret.). In 1944, then 1st Lt. Linder, age 20, arrived in Goleta to learn to strafe, dive-bomb, and eventually land on aircraft carriers, with the F4U Corsair warplane (sometimes called the “bent-wing”). Linder lived in barracks—one of the 103 buildings constructed for the base—on the nearby mesa that now hosts UC Santa Barbara. He joined 50 pilots and 275 support crew members in what would in a few months become the third reconstituted version of Marine Fighting Squadron 214, the famed Black Sheep Squadron.
Also at this base, the Marines prepared no fewer than 22 other fighter squadrons for the Pacific theater, as well as units of torpedo bombers, scout bombers, carrier air service detachments, and various aircraft support groups. However, none of the men who failed to return home from those other missions were from Santa Barbara County. Their sacrifices are engraved, hopefully, on the hearts and memories of those they left behind, if not on other war memorials.
Linder, walking with a cane but standing tall, and Gen. Lopez in his dress uniform, moved together past the color guard to place a wreath at the base of the black obelisk. The seven-man honor guard fired a 3-volley salute and a bugler played “Taps.”
The memorial will serve many purposes in the future as the airport develops its properties north of Hollister and quite possibly, according to Ramsdell, changes street names. “The memorial is permanent,” Ramsdell added. “It will help to ensure that these individuals continue to be honored for their sacrifice.”
The piece de resistance of the dedication, which came about a week before Memorial Day, was a flyover by two WWII era warplanes—a T28 Trojan and, of course, a F4U Corsair. Afterward, Linder, who lives in Carpinteria with his wife, Mickey, told me that the vision of the Corsair overhead created a special moment: “It was a beautiful sight, one I hadn’t seen in 60 years.” From the faces of the people around me, I know he was not alone in his feelings.
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