Veteran Spotlight
by Richard D. L. Fulton
Wilber Roland Long
Lost At Sea
Former Emmitsburg resident Wilber Roland Long was born on October 6, 1918, in Creagerstown, to parents Wilmar L. and Carrie Fuss Long.
Long had no siblings, but “had a number of relatives in the Emmitsburg-Rocky Ridge section,” according to an article published in the September 29, 1942, edition of The (Hanover) Evening Sun.
The Sun newspaper had also reported that Long was a graduate of Emmitsburg High School in the class of 1936 and was involved in farm work before his induction into the Army.
Long, upon joining the Army, became a member of the crew of a bomber in the 11th Bomber Group, Heavy 26th Bomber Squadron, according to the HonorStates.org website.
The September 29, 1942, edition of The Sun stated that Long was “reported to be a photographer on a giant bomber of the Army Air Corps.” However, Long was listed as the flight engineer aboard a B-17E Flying Fortress, also as per HonorStates.org and other references.
At some point during his service, he achieved the rank of staff sergeant.
Long and his close friend, the late James Adelsberger, also of Emmitsburg, both served in the Army Air Corps (and had also registered together), and both were based at Hickam Field in Oahu, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Long and the 26th Bomber Squadron were subsequently reassigned to Henderson Field in Guadalcanal in September, where the bombers were assigned to bomb enemy naval areas in order to mask forces, transports, and airfields during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
According to Solomen Air War, Solomons Air War – Volume 1: Guadalcanal August – September 1942 (Avonmore Books, 2023), on September 14, 1942, Long was in the crew of the B-17E (Number #41-2527) when his plane, and a number of other bombers, began attacking enemy shipping, north from the New Hebrides, in the area of the Solomon Islands.
During the attack, Long’s B-17E was struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire, which damaged the plane’s #4 engine, forcing the plane to withdraw from the fray.
According to HonorStates.org, the plane’s crew had a difficult time receiving the directional radio beam and were forced to land in the sea. The bomber and its crew were subsequently reported lost, and no remains of the crew or the wreckage were ever found.
Long’s mother received notification that he was reported as missing in action during September, and that he was lost at sea, according to an article in the September 29, 1942, edition of The Sun, which had misidentified Long as having been “William Roland Long.”
Also noted was the fact that the misspelling of his name had given his mother some hope that she had been misinformed, and that her son might not have been the subject of the notice. However, the newspaper had further noted that the mother had subsequently received a corrected notification with her son’s name in it.
Long was officially declared dead a year after he had been declared missing in action, according to an article published in the September 29, 1943, edition of The (Frederick) News.
Those who perished with Long in the crash of Long’s airplane included Harry Bolles, radio operator; Hugh W. Owens, pilot; George W. Chandler, co-pilot; Thomas L. Daly, bombardier; Emory L. Hall, navigator; John G. Jones, assistant radio operator; Nicholas P. Novogrodsky, assistant engineer; and Edgar L. Stone, gunner.
Long was reportedly the first Emmitsburg soldier who had been deemed missing in action in World War II, according to the March 5, 1943, edition of The Sun.
The Sun also reported that at the time of Long’s death, Emmitsburg had 155 men serving in the armed forces.
Long was reputedly posthumously awarded the Air Medal, Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Army Good Conduct Medal, and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, according to HonorStates.org. However, the website states, regarding the posting of citations, “Please note this might not be a complete or completely accurate accounting.”
Long was memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Emmitsburg members of the Army Air Corp, Wilber Roland Long (left) and friend James Adelsberger (right), photographed at Hickam Field in Oahu, Hawaii, on September 14, 1941. Source: Loaned to the author for publication by the late-James Adelsberger
Corrections to August’s column “Joseph Wood, Jr. – Founder of Woodsboro,” Courtesy of Dahl Drenning, a descendant of Colonel Joseph Wood: Joseph Wood, Jr. was born in 1743, probably on Monocacy Manor, Frederick County; Joseph Wood, Jr. did not remarry after the death of his wife Anne Reed Wood in 1781; Town of Woodsboro was laid out in 1786, on Lot 52 of Monocacy Manor, which Joseph Wood, Jr. (Colonel) purchased. The town was never part of Wood’s Mill Land; The brick bank barn was constructed after the ownership of Woods Mill Land passed from Colonel Wood in 1789; The Flying Camp was more than home guards with the 37th Battalion joining Washington’s army in Philadelphia in January of 1777, then moving to the winter encampment in New Jersey, likely returning to Frederick at the end of their sixth month. Not entirely sure he had a militia command in 1780; Joseph Wood died sometime in 1793, and may have been buried in an unmarked grave.
