In God We Trust
The source and date of this news clipping is unknown but was sent to the KWE by the family of Edna June Rundell, a victim of the crash. The article appeared in a Bremerton area newspaper on pages 1 and 5.
Navy reports identifying the 26 persons killed Tuesday when a four-engined transport crashed into the sea near Kwajalein were especially shocking to personnel at U.S. Naval Hospital here. Five of 11 navy nurses aboard were detached from the local hospital last week. They were Lieut. (jg) Mary Eleanor Liljegreen and Ensigns Eleanor Clara Beste, Jane Louise Eldridge, Marie Margaret Boatman and Edna June Rundell. The other victims were eight navy men who were passengers and the seven crew members. Only four bodies were recovered.
Today the navy sent a special plane to drop 26 Hawaiian leis on the waters, two miles from Kwajalein Island where the transport had refueled on a flight from Hawaii to the far east.
There was hurried excitement among the five nurses and their friends at the naval hospital here 10 days ago. The five had received dispatch orders for overseas assignment.
One of the most excited was Lieutenant Liljegreen whose promotion to that rank came simultaneously with her orders. As such she became senior officer of the group reporting to San Francisco by commercial air. The dark-eyed, 25-year-old brunette from Seattle was serving on her second station, having been indoctrinated at the naval hospital at Oak Knoll, California. She had reported here during the Christmas holidays of 1949. Among her friends and among the patients in the dependents ward where she last worked, Lieutenant Liljegreen was known as "Mary". Her surviving parents are Mr. and Mrs. Carl J. Liljegreen of Seattle.
Most outwardly pleased with prospect of her overseas assignment was Ensign Beste, 25, a vivacious blue-eyed blonde from Freeport, Minnesota. Beginning with her arrival here 20 months ago for indoctrination, Ensign Beste became well-known for her many interests and popularity. Ensign Beste wanted to be a doctor. So, last year she attended Olympic college by day and worked evenings at the hospital. In addition, she studied foreign languages through correspondence courses. "Ensign Beste was extremely popular with dependents," Lieutenant R.J. Mitchell, assistant chief nurse, recalls.
Ensign Eldridge, 28, was on leave and vacationing at her Detroit, Michigan home when her orders came. She returned to hurriedly pack her personal and professional belongings. Bremerton also was her first navy station: she reported here in December of 1947 and served largely in hospital wards. The tall, slender brunette was engaged to a navy doctor who left recently for assignment aboard a military transport.
Ensign Boatman, a jolly Texan who seemed younger than her 25 years, was the only other member of the group able to visit home before departing overseas. She visited San Antonio briefly before her final flight. Ensign Boatman, a tall, strawberry blonde, had been here only since January of this year, having received her indoctrination at the Long Beach naval hospital. Her duties had been in the outpatients clinic and on the enlisted wards and her Texan humor had always been welcome.
The last of the group, Ensign Rundell, had reported here in January of 1948 for indoctrination and her duties had been on medical and surgical wards. The tiny, 24-year-old brunette from Stafford, Kansas, had only recently learned of the death of her father.
Lieut. (jg) Alice Stella Giroux of Tacoma, and Lieut. (jg) Jeanne Elizabeth Clarke of Portland are among the other nurse victims. Others are Lieut. (jg) Call Virginia Goodwin of Raleigh, North Carolina; Lieut. (jg) Constance Adair Heege of Kirkwood, Missouri; Lieut. (jg) Margaret Grace Kennedy of Webster, Massachusetts; and Ens. Constance Rita Esposito of Brockway, Pennsylvania.
Plane crewmen were Lieut. Comdr. S.L. White, Barber's Point, Hawaii; Lieut. Comdr. I.S. Best, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Lieut. W.L. Watkins, Palo Alto, California; and Lieut. (jg.) W.G. Spangle, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Also, Chief Machinist A.G. Sessoms, Charleston, Tennessee; E.A. Sauer, aviation electronics man third class, Scottsbluff, Nebraska; and A.J. Johnson, aviation electronics man third class, Beaumont, Texas.
Passengers were Lieut. J.J. Kilthau, Portland; Lieut. (jg) W.L. Horter, Balboa, Canal Zone; Lieut. (jg) F.G. Palmer, Newport, Rhode Island; Ens. E.F. Englehardt, Cincinnati, Ohio; Ens. R.A. Harsh, Clinton, Michigan; Ens. D.J. Jackson, Jr., Berwick, Pennsylvania; Ens. H.K. Smith, Los Angeles; and Ens. A.E. Thrall, Colton, California.
Appeared in the Stafford Courier, Volume 48 on Thursday, September 21, 1950:
Edna Rundell First Casualty From Stafford
Ensign Edna June Rundell, daughter of Mrs. Lee Rundell, has been reported killed in an airplane crash off the coast of Kwajalein Tuesday. She and 25 other Navy personnel perished in the crash of a naval transport plane enroute to Japan.
Official notice of her death was received by the family in Stafford Wednesday. Her mother, Mrs. Lee Rundell, is in California visiting two other daughters.
Edna had served the past three and one half years as a navy nurse spending most of that time at the Bremerton, Wash. hospital. She attended the Stafford schools and received her nurse cadet training at St. Elizabeth hospital in Hutchinson. She received further training at the Wellington, Kansas hospital before joining the Navy.
She is survived by her mother, Mrs. Lee Rundell, Stafford; four sisters, Mrs. Evelyn Gilmer, Kansas City, Mrs. Kenneth Lofland, Ulysses, Mrs. M. L. Lee, Los Angeles and Mrs. Melvin Hathaway, Los Angeles. Two brothers, Harold and Jay of Stafford.
September 21, 1950:
Stafford Girl Dies In Crash
Washington (AP) - Ens. Edna June Rundell, 25, Stafford, was one of the victims of the crash of a navy transport plane at Kwajalein Tuesday night.
Twenty-six navy personnel were killed. This included 11 navy nurses. The nurses were on their way to duty in the Far East.
Ens. Rundell was born in Stafford, attended schools here. Her father died last summer. Her mother, Mrs. Gladys Rundell, is in California. She had stayed on for a visit in California after visiting her daughter before the nurse left for duty.