Ensign Robert Hays Hedley USN

Air Medal with Gold Star

Robert Hays Hedley was born on August 9, 1919 to Frank and Jessie Hedley in Minnesota. The family eventually wound up in Vista, California where Robert attended junior high and Oceanside Carlsbad Union HS. After graduating in 1938 he enrolled at NMAMC for two years studying Diary Husbandry. While at school he played trumpet in the band and was pledged to Phi Chi Psi fraternity. He left school in 1940 and returned to Vista where he worked at a local dairy up until June 1942 when he enlisted in the US Navy. The navy sent him to Corpus Christi TX where he completed basic flight training and was commissioned in July 1943. He then attended numerous flight schools over the course of the next 12 months to become proficient as a naval fighter pilot. He met his wife while stationed in the east and in May 1944 he married the former Elizabeth Lincoln Schaefer. In July 1944 he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 44 and attached to the USS Langley for escort missions in and around the Philippine Islands. He was awarded air medals for air victories over enemy aircraft as well as surviving a crash landing in November 1944. On January 21, 1945, just after returning from a mission he was seated in the officer’s stateroom when a suicide bomber crashed into the Langley inflicting great damage and killing Ensign Hedley instantly. He was subsequently buried at sea. All correspondence from the navy to his family lists the cause of death as a bomb from an enemy aircraft striking the ship. This was most likely done to not spread fear from the use of suicide aircraft to the public. Ensign Robert Hays Hedley was 25 years of age at the time of his death and is today memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery Tablets of the Missing.