A Watsonville Air Station ensign and his plane plunged into San Francisco Bay.

Robert T. Burke was born in Pennsylvania in 1923 to Mr. and Mrs. Patrick F. Burke. Robert is believed to have spent his formative years and received his education in the area of Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

After completing high school and possibly some college, Burke entered the naval aviation cadet program, which he completed in 1944.

Following his commissioning, Ensign Burke was assigned to the Watsonville Air Station where he flew training missions and conducted anti-submarine patrols along the California coast. Early in 1945 Burke's wife joined him from Philadelphia and the couple established their residence at the Fan Mar Terrace apartments in Capitola.

On February 10, 1945, Ensign Robert T. Burke was on a routine flight over San Francisco Bay when his fighter plane crashed near the Dunbarton Bridge and he was killed. His remains were recovered, returned to Pennsylvania and interred in the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Delaware County.

(SCSn February 12, 1945; Delaware County, Cemeteries, http:// chestercountygenealogy.com/modules/gengraves/singlelink.php?cid=354&lid=16313, [16 September 2008])