William Asa Hale

WILLIAM ASA HALE, son of MINNA CHARLOTTE FIELD and EDWARD WARREN HALE, was born May 18, 1894 in Cranford, Union, New Jersey,⁸ and died August 12, 1918 in Curtiss Field, Buffalo, Erie, New York.⁷⁹⁵⁹

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 17, 1918⁷⁹⁵⁹

HOME GUARD ESCORT FOR HALE'S FUNERAL

Young Aviator to Be Buried With Honors From His Birthplace in Cranford, N. J.

SON OF OLD BROOKLYNITES

Mr. Hale Had Been Promoted to Consulting Aviation Engineer Just Before Fatal Accident

(Special to The Eagle)

Cranford, N. J., July 17—William Asa Hale, 24 years old, the young aviation engineer who was killed in an airplane accident at Curtis Field, Buffalo, N. Y., on Monday, was a son of Edward Warren Hale and Minna C. Field, former residents of Hart street, Brooklyn, who have been living here for several years. His father was formerly Assistant Sub-Treasurer of the United States Treasury in Manhattan for more than forty years, retiring a year ago on account of ill health, and his mother was the daughter of Thomas W. Field, who at the time of his death had been superintendent of schools in the old City of Brooklyn for many years.

William Asa Hale was born in Cranford, and his funeral services will be held on Friday in the house where he was born, 18 Cranford avenue. The Cranford Home Defense League will take part in the services and escort the remains to the Westfield Cemetery, where he will be buried with military honors.

Mr. Hale graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1916 and immediately entered the service of the Unites States in the manufacture of airplanes as an inspector. He was a born mechanic, thoroughly familiar with the construction of motors, and was soon sent out to the factories to inspect their product. Later his abilities were recognized in sending him to aviation fields to make final tests of aeroplanes, and just before his death he had been commissioned a consulting engineer in the Aviation Service. He was making a propeller test for altitude at Curtis Field on Monday, with Homer V. Sharp as pilot, when the plane went into a slide slip from a bank, and from that into a tail spin too close to the ground for it to straighten out. It dashed to the ground, killing Mr. Hale and seriously injuring Mr. Sharp.

Mr. Hale is survived by his parents, a brother, Frank Hale of Clinton, Ill., and two sisters, Miss Alice Field Hale and Ella Crittendon Hale, the wife of Major Jesse Scott Button, U. S. A., now with the American troops on the western front in France.