Aviation Cadet
United States Army Air Force
Robert J. Knapp, son of Louis J. and Elizabeth Knapp, was born in Muscatine on 3 December 1918. He lived in Davenport for sixteen years.
Robert attended Saint Anthony’s School, Saint Ambrose Academy from 1940 to 1943, and Iowa State College in Ames.
Prior to enlisting in the United States Army Air Force on 23 May 1943, Robert worked at Rock Island for two years. He served at Sheppard Field, Texas; at an airfield near Santa Ana, California; and at Kingman Air Base in Kingman, Arizona.
On 6 January 1944, Robert and 31 other cadets, plus four cadre, boarded a bus for night time gunnery practice. On their return to the base, the bus was struck by a diesel powered Santa Fe freight train killing twenty-seven. Base medical officers immediately set up a field hospital at the scene and ordered 300 men to stand by for blood transfusions to the more seriously injured. The Kingman Air Base commander called Robert’s mother on 7 January, informing her of Robert’s death.
Robert was survived by his mother and two brothers; Louis T. (A Sergeant in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps stationed in England) and Charles E. (with the United States Army Air Forces stationed at Lincoln, Nebraska).
Aviation Cadet Robert J. Knapp, United States Army Air Forces, is buried in Muscatine’s Saint Mary’s Cemetery.
Source of Information:
1. Saint Ambrose Academy school newspaper, The Saint Ambrose Academy News, 14 January 1944, page 2.
2. Saint Ambrose Academy school newspaper, The Saint Ambrose Academy News, 28 September 1944, page 1.
3. Saint Ambrose Academy school newspaper, The Saint Ambrose Academy News, 12 October 1944, page 1.
4. Davenport Democrat and Times, 7 January 1944, page 1.
5. Davenport Democrat and Times, 10 January 1944, page 13.
6. Davenport Democrat and Times, 11 January 1944, page 13.
7. Davenport Democrat and Times, 13 January 1944, page 9.
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