March 16, 1943, was a dreary day in Delaware County, with heavy fog and low clouds blanketing the area. That morning, Captain William W. Webster, 56, 
manager of the Naval Aircraft Factory at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, took off for Washington, D.C., in a two-engine Navy bomber piloted by Lt. J. B. Bennett, 35. Soon after takeoff, they ran into the thick fog.
Marcus Hook resident Nellie Howard heard an aircraft sputtering overhead. The plane may have been circling, searching for a clearing, and may have run low on fuel. Howard saw it emerge from 
the fog and clip treetops on Edward Poulson’s farm before crashing in Lawn Croft Cemetery near the Pennsylvania-Delaware line. Poulson also heard the plane and believed the pilot was searching for a place to land. Howard said that if the plane had been ten feet higher, it would have cleared the trees and landed safely in a nearby cornfield. Poulson said it missed the
clearing by just 75 feet. Life is a game of inches. The plane disintegrated on impact, killing both Webster and Bennett at about 10:15 am.
At the Navy Yard, the crew likely radioed back reporting trouble before losing contact. A second Navy plane was dispatched to search for the crash site, piloted by Ensign John Marcus Anderson, 36, a veteran Navy test 
pilot, with Aviation Chief Radioman J.R. Wilcox, 33. Anderson had helped pioneer Naval aviation and develop air bases in the Pacific. But that morning, he found himself in the same dangerous fog.
In Newtown Square, horse trainer Morris H. Dixon was riding on his Pond Gate Farm, now the site of Newtown Square Presbyterian Church and Culbertson Elementary School. He heard the low roar of a circling plane. Across Goshen Road, Anna DeVito also heard it. Tending to her frightened sheep, she suddenly saw the aircraft break through the clouds barely 100 feet overhead. The engine roared as the pilot tried to climb, but it was too late. She heard a crash and an explosion.
Dixon and one of the DeVito children rushed to the scene. Later that week, the child told classmates at school about the terrible sight. 
Anderson and Wilcox were killed instantly. Once again, life had been a matter of inches.
The crash site was eventually cleared. Over time, the farm scene was restored: “I am the grass; I cover all.” And 16 years later, an elementary school was built there. Few remembered the tragedy until. Searching through wartime reports, I uncovered the story of these four Naval aviators. Let us remember Captain Webster, Lieutenant Bennett, Ensign Anderson and Radioman Wilcox, who gave their lives in service to their country in World War II.
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