Portland man is remembered

It was 70 years ago today — Oct. 22, 1943 — that a PB4Y-1 Liberator took off from U.S. Naval Air Facility Dunkeswell, a former Royal Air Force airbase in Devonshire in the south of England.
The aircraft, an unmodified B-24, was part of VB-105 Squadron of U.S. Navy Fleet Air Wing Seven. Its mission was anti-submarine patrol in the Bay of Biscay, that part of the Atlantic Ocean west of France and north of Spain.
Lt. Thomas R. Evert was at the controls. On board was a crew of 10, including a young man from Portland, Raymond O. Haines, a bombardier.
The aircraft never returned.
“It is thought that (it) was attacked by enemy aircraft and shot down,” David Sharland of the Dunkeswell Memorial Museum said this week in an email to The Commercial Review. “No trace of the aircraft and its crew was found in any subsequent search activities.”
Each year, Raymond Haines and the rest of those who lost their lives flying out of Dunkeswell are remembered in a memorial service. Now, Sharland and the Dunkeswell Memorial Museum have been put in touch with local surviving family members.
Sandy Schwieterman, Portland, remembers hearing about her uncle from her father, Jim Haines, and her grandmother, Nora (Ashley) Haines.But details were few.
“My grandmother always said, ‘I heard a knock on the door one day. It was a man in uniform. I knew,’” said Evans, who was born three years after Raymond Haines was declared missing in action.
Haines was 28 at the time of his ill-fated mission. His wife, Mabel (Miller) Haines, had taken a job in Fort Wayne in a defense plant and was undergoing a work-related physical when she received word that her husband was missing in action.
A graduate of Portland High School, Haines had worked at Sheller Manufacturing Co. before enlisting in the Naval Air Corps in June of 1942.
He received his basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station and underwent bombardier training in Florida and Virginia. He was sent to England in August 1943, about the time the RAF Dunkeswell airfield opened.
Evans now has the contact information for Sharland and the memorial museum. She is forwarding that to her brother in Bristol, Ind.: Raymond Otto Haines, who is his uncle’s namesake.
Fleet Wing Seven flew a total of 6,464 missions, sunk five submarines and assisted in sinking at least four more, according to the memorial museum’s website. It lost 183 men.[[In-content Ad]]