Name: Kavanagh, Charles Joseph, ARM3, USNR
Local address: Rt 1, Box 512, Matawan, NJ (MHS Class of 1941) I believe this address was on Spring Valley Road near what is now Route 9. Newspaper articles in the 1930s often mentioned Browntown when referring to the family.
Charles was originally “Charles Joseph Hughes,” born May 8, 1922 in New York City to Charles Joseph Hughes (1896-1923) and Margaret Amelia Cavicchia (1902-1983) – Margaret used the surname “Miller” when she married. He was the 2nd of three children born to this couple.
In August of 1923, Charles’ father, who was employed as a shipping clerk at a furniture factory, was riding a bicycle in New York City looking for witnesses to an accident which recently killed his brother when he was struck by a truck and killed, leaving his wife with three children, ages 3, 2 and seven months.
Margaret remarried Joseph Patrick Kavanagh (1897-1950), an electrician and navy veteran who served aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) during WWI, and they had a son of their own, Joseph Charles Cavanaugh (1929-1949).
Charles attended grade school at the Browntown School. He was a member of that school’s Safety Patrol in 1937 – they all went on “strike” due to some bussing issues. That year Charles was a member of a newly organized “junior band” in which he played cornet in preparation for his entrance into Matawan High School.
While at MHS, Charles – who went by the nickname “Red” – lettered in football and track. In the summer of 1940, he enrolled in a one-month training program called the Citizens Military Training Camp (CMTC) at Ft. Dix – he was the only one from Matawan who joined.
In a home room basketball tournament on December 13, 1940, Charles’ team was defeated in the finals by a team led by Spafford Schanck. Both Charles and Spafford would not survive the war. In March of 1941, Charles was in the cast for the Senior Play “The Ghost Parade,” which was written by his sister Catherine. He graduated from MHS in June of 1941.
On June 30, 1942, Charles registered for the draft. He was listed as 5’6 ½” tall, 140 pounds, blue eyes and red hair with a ruddy complexion. A scar over his right eye was noted, and his place of employment was listed as Dupont, Parlin, NJ, where his stepfather was employed.
Why he had to register in June of 1942 is unclear, because he had enlisted in the Navy the previous March. Before leaving for the Navy, he underwent a surgical procedure at Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Neptune in July of 1942. In November court records showed that he legally changed his name from “Hughes” to “Kavanagh.”
On November 23, 1942, an announcement appeared in the Matawan Journal which indicated that Charles, a student at the Aviation Radio School in Jacksonville, Fl, was engaged to marry Eleanor Lawrence, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Lawrence of Atlantic Avenue in Matawan.
In a letter published in the Journal on January 21, 1943, Charles told of his communications training and what the Navy had in store for him. He advised “The weather here has been perfect, but I’ll take Jersey any day.”
In May of 1943, Charles transitioned to Naval Gunnery School in Jacksonville, and upon completion was assigned to Squadron PB-2, an operational training unit there. Charles was then assigned to squadron VPB-110, and on September 26, 1943, he and nine other crew members boarded PB4Y Privateer BU# 63919 and departed Norfolk, VA, with two other aircraft. The Privateer was the navy’s version of the B-24 Liberator. After stops in Presque Isle, ME, Goose Bay in Canada, Iceland and RAF base Prestwick, they completed their journey at St. Eval, UK.
The Navy planned to take over anti-submarine patrolling the Bay of Biscay off France from the Army Air Corps to free up their B-24s for strategic bombing. It was from one of these patrols on November 8, 1943 that Charles’ aircraft with its crew of ten failed to return. A message intercepted by another aircraft indicated that the crew was under attack, followed a while later by an SOS. Nothing further was ever learned about this crew and they were listed as missing in action. The following day another plane in the squadron was attacked by ME-210s. Navy patrol bombers were also the target of JU-88 interceptor squadrons.
Charles’ half brother Joseph also was in the Navy post WWII. After his discharge he and some friends were driving to a skating rink on December 5, 1949 when his car was involved in a head on collision in Union Beach in which three individuals were killed, including Joseph. If that wasn’t enough for his poor mother, her husband Joseph, SR, died of a heart attack the following May.
Charles’ fiancé Eleanor subsequently married Charles George Welle in Matawan in October of 1947 and they had three children. Eleanor died in 2007.
There is a memorial marker for Charles with his parents in the New Calvary Cemetery in Parlin. His remains, however, are considered unrecoverable and are somewhere in the Bay of Biscay.
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