James Wendell Tague

Second Lieutenant James Tague flew with VMF-115, a Marine Corps fighter squadron training at MCAS Santa Barbara in preparation for deployment overseas.

On 21 September 1943, Tague took one of the squadron’s F4F “Wildcat” fighters on an authorized night training flight. He departed Goleta Field at 2315 hours without incident, and the field anticipated his return in about an hour. The anticipated time came and went, and by dawn it was clear that Tauge had no more fuel to return. Searches were organized immediately and scoured Tague’s planned flight path, which lay over mountainous terrain.

Unfortunately, all searches came up empty. Because Tague was flying alone and at night, nobody knew for sure where his plane went down. The Corps reported his disappearance, but waited until securing searches in early October to announce “facts warrant presumptive death.” The cause of his crash – and, indeed, where the crash occurred – are still unknown.