PAYNE

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 05:32:29 :

San Rafael Independent
Thursday, March 25, 1943
Page 1

Lt. Col. John Payne, Former San Anselmo Flier, Killed in Africa

Two months to the very day after the War Department advised her last January 15 that her husband, Lt. Col. John Payne, 29, U. S. Army Air Corps and until the outbreak of the war, stationed at Hamilton Field, was missing in action, Mrs. Marietta Payne received a second message that he had been killed in North Africa.

Payne, a bomber pilot met death on January 11 according to information furnished by the German government through the International Red Cross.

The young flier, then Lieut. Payne was stationed at the Marin airbase until Pearl Harbor, and resided with his wife and three-year-old daughter Mary on Sequoia Drive, San Anselmo. When he was ordered overseas, Mrs. Payne and her daughter returned to the former’s home in Austin, Texas.

Payne was awarded the Silver Star last fall for the part he played in piloting a four-engine bomber that inflicted “heavy damage: on the Italian Fleet and was promoted to lieutenant colonel.