FISHKILL – The Town of Fishkill and the Friends of the Mt. Beacon Eight are scheduled to host a ceremony on Saturday, November 7 at Fishkill’s Veterans Park on RT 52 starting at 10:30 a.m.
The ceremony will honor the eight Navy servicemen who lost their lives in two separate plane crashes on Mt. Beacon. Social distancing guidelines will be in place. Masks are mandatory.
The first crash took place on September 14, 1935. Two Navy reservists, Pilot Lincoln Denton (27) and Aviation Machinist Mate Clinton Hart (28) lost their lives as their single-engine bi-plane crashed on Scofield Ridge.
Denton, a Harvard graduate, was employed as a commercial artist. Hart, a Katonah native, was employed by the New York Stock Exchange. They were making their return flight from Albany to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.
On November 11, 1945, (Armistice Day) a second Navy plane crashed on the northwest slope of Mt. Beacon. Six servicemen, including highly decorated Navy legend Commodore Dixie Kiefer, lost their lives when their Beechcraft Expeditor crashed while they were on their return flight from Caldwell, NJ to Quonset Point, RI.
The six men traveled to the New York Coty area on November 10, 1945 to attend an Army/Notre Dame football game that was played at Yankee Stadium.
The traditional popular Army / Navy game was just weeks away.
The other five men were Pilot Lloyd Heinzen (27), Co-Pilot Hans Kohler (25), passengers Dr. Zielinski (45), David Wood (23) and Clarence Hooper (22).
