ENS Paul Lowthian
(December, 18, 1921 to December 28, 1943)
She remembers the last time she saw him, although her memories are dimmed by the intervening 70 + years, waving over his shoulder, a smile strong on his tanned face. And the flint of gold wings on his chest. He mouthed the words, “I love you,” and I’ll be home soon. He had his B4 bag and his flight gear and headed out on what was supposed to be an uneventful flight to return a damaged PB4Y-1 Liberator from England to the U.S. She looked around and thought to herself, “I’m alone. I’m on my own now.” Her name was Lois Lowthian, and she was 20-years -old.
Ensign Paul Lowthian was born in Coronado in 1921, and graduated from Coronado High School in 1938. Lois said, “When we met I was going to Business College in San Diego and rode the ferry back and forth to school. (I graduated from San Diego High School in June 1941 even though I lived in Coronado.) I would see Paul frequently on the street-car that ran up Orange Avenue, from the ferry landing to the Hotel Del. He would be returning from his flying lessons at Gibbs Field (now Montgomery Field) in San Diego. We both got off at the Fourth Street stop. We would speak and one thing led to another, and eventually we started dating. Many people used public transit because of gas rationing.”
Paul lived in the 300 block of Orange Ave. He was part of the ‘between the wars’ generation of Coronado kids. He was a normal, tall, blond, good looking, tanned happy teenager. “Once he told me when he was a young boy, he and a friend made a raft and sailed it with them aboard on San Diego Bay, much to the dismay of his parents. He had that spirit of adventure even then.” He might have followed his father’s footsteps as an engineer, he was good at math and science, but that was not to be.
Like the other young men and boys, he couldn’t resist looking up in the sky whenever he heard the sound of one of the airplanes landing or taking off from the Naval Air Station. He would shelter his eyes and follow the sound and the sight of the noisy primitive planes as long as he could. Paul and his buddies could identify each type of airplane by its sound and speed, appearance, and whether it was alone or in a formation. They fantasized about what it would be like to fly one of the shiny new planes.
“He was good student and very industrious. When he wasn’t in school he was working in Coronado to earn money for flying lessons. All he wanted to do was fly. That was his main purpose in life. He came from a large family of modest means and he knew he would have to earn his own money to reach his goal. After graduation for Coronado High School, Paul went to Pasadena Jr. College, he boarded with – and earned his keep from – the Pasadena Superintendent of Schools.”
They saw the pilots in town, walking the streets in small groups or sometimes alone, chatting with the older girls. They had a style, a look and a grin, that made them stand out, and the gold wings. They always wore their wings. The girls he knew all seemed to want to meet and date one of the fliers.
Paul got to the Air Station a few times and saw the fighters and bombers up close. He never got the smell of the aviation gasoline, and the castor oil, and the strange smell of the dope on the fabric of the control surfaces out of his memory.
Then the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself – he applied for and was accepted into the Naval Aviation Cadet program. “I believe he had his pilot’s license when he was selected,” said Lois.
The war was raging in Europe and Asia. The tempo of life was accelerating at the Naval Air Station North Island, a few blocks from his home. There were more airplanes in the air, and more sailors and pilots on the streets of his quiet, welcoming home-town.
“After he was selected for the cadet program, Paul was sent to Naval Air Station (NAS) Los Alamitos, in long Beach, CA, for a few months. He would come home weekends and occasionally, I would take the Greyhound to see him. Once I just missed the last ferry (stopped at midnight) to Coronado and had to spend the night sitting in the lobby of the U.S. Grant Hotel. I got the first ferry the next morning (started at 5 AM) to Coronado. (These are things you don’t forget.)”
Paul was next assigned to Naval Air Station (NAS) Corpus Christi, Texas (TX), where he took his flight training and received his “wings.” He enjoyed flight training. It was challenging but deeply rewarding. He matured as a flier and learned to do aerobatics, to fly in-formation and the basics of aerial gunnery and bombing. “He returned home on-leave and we became engaged before he left again to join a squadron flying PBM’s (Patrol Bomber Flying Boat) in Banana River, Florida (FL). I can remember him mentioning the “Banana River bounce”. That was what they called taking off and landing on the Banana River in their flying boats (PBM’s).
“His next assignment was to a patrol squadron at NAS Norfolk, Virginia (VA). Soon after this, he got his skipper’s permission to marry me. That was a must in those days. He got leave, returned to Coronado, and we were married on June 18, 1943, in a small ceremony with family and friends at the chapel in the Administration Building at North Island, with a reception at the Officer’s Club. We left immediately after the reception for a week’s honeymoon in New York City before settling in Norfolk.”
“During those war days, New York City was “blacked out” for security reasons as were all other cities on the East and West coasts. The City opened its arms to the military. We stayed at the Commodore Hotel in the heart of Manhattan. We went sightseeing, saw several Broadway shows and visited many of the big night-clubs. ‘No cover charge’ for us! We had a great time.”
“Paul had rented a very nice, new, furnished apartment for us before he left to marry me, so we would have a nice place to stay when I arrived in Norfolk. Housing was hard to find in those days, but Paul managed to find a great apartment. After we settled in Norfolk, I think the days were pretty routine for Paul, except one day, when he came home and told me about his plane and crew rescuing a pilot from a Navy plane that had crash-landed in the Atlantic. Paul visited the recovering pilot in the hospital.”
Everything was a wonderful maze of emotions and excitement, with the underlying dread of the war and his approaching deployment as their accompanying background music. The war as heating up now, and the tide was slowly starting to turn. The Navy was beginning to assert the power of aviation in the Pacific, and the small carriers were becoming effective in escorting convoys of freighters across the Atlantic to keep Britain ‘alive.’
Sometime in November, 1943, Paul received orders to fly to England with a crew to ferry a PB4Y-1 (Liberator) back to the USA for repairs. (The job of the Navy PB4Y-1 Liberator aircrews was to keep German U-boats from successfully operating in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel by going out day after day, often in miserable weather conditions, on unrelenting search and destroy missions. During the war, Liberators were responsible for the sinking of five U-boats and damaging many more.)
In Lois’ own words, “On Dec. 28, 1943, Paul and a flight crew took off to return to the United States, but they never made it. The Liberator crashed into the sea on takeoff. Paul was declared ‘missing in action.’ Apparently, the Navy did not have my address because they notified my parents in Coronado of the crash. My parents were the ones who called me to tell me the dreadful news! The Navy did get me a priority to fly home. In those days, only people necessary to the war-effort flew commercially. A friend from his squadron phoned me (after I returned to Coronado) to tell me not to hold out hopes because he had seen the bomber crash into the sea. In his kind words, he said that it was time to move on with my life.”
She did that. Youth has a remarkable way of holding something and at the same time letting it go.
She remarried eight years later and lived in Coronado and is a productive member of the community having raised two girls who became wonderful women. She never forgot the young Ensign who was her first love; she and thousands of others who lost their loved ones in that long and terrible war.
Was it worth it? She would have to say yes, but the cost was horrific and at times she would think why couldn’t it have been someone else? Then she realized that would have been transferring her grief to another person. Now, she still looks up when she hears one of the jets arriving at North Island, and she knows that she too, made a contribution to the war, a major, and yet very personal, private contribution, like so many others.
*All of the quotes are from Mrs. Lois Land a long time resident of Coronado.
Ensign Lowthian’s banner is proudly waving at Fourth and I.
By Veteran’s Group Writer (Oceanside), Ron Pickett, May 2015
Next week’s Avenue of Heroes biography will be Commander John “Jack” R. Lewis
Co-written by Suzi Lewis Pignataro and Coronado Scribe, Mary Beth Dodson, May 2015
(Banner at Fourth and H)
