Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a young Herbert Mercer was already jumping into service for his country. By the age of 23, the married First Lieutenant was ferrying planes, cargo and personnel around the country until his life ended tragically.

Herbert Edward Mercer was born on February 26, 1921[i] to Herbert Burnett Mercer and Fern Bernice Goodman Mercer in Blackwell, Oklahoma. The couple had been married 9 years.[ii] Both Herbert and Fern were from Kansas.

Herbert was the oldest child in the family. The family continued to grow with a baby girl, Henrietta Fern Mercer, in 1922, and then another baby boy, Walter W. Mercer, born in 1925.[iii]

In 1930, one of the Great Depression years, Herbert is 9 years old. At some point, the family has moved 217 miles south from a home in Coalinga to Santa Paula, California. His dad is supporting them by working for the Texas Oil Company.

There were large oil fields in Santa Paula, California that Spanish explorers saw Native American’s using in the 1500s.[iv] Herbert, his dad, is a clerk in the oil company office.[v] The family lived in a home they rented on Oak Ridge.

An outdoorsman, Herbert participated in the Boy Scouts. He like wilderness adventures including joining a group planning to hike to Mount Whitney’s summit, according to a local newspaper.[vi] He enjoyed deer hunting with friends.[vii]

Herbert graduated from Santa Paula Union High School in Santa Paula, California.

HIS LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

In 1940, as the war years arrive, the children of Herbert and Fern are now teens. Sister Henrietta is in her senior year of high school. Brother Walter is a sophomore in high school with her, but Herbert, the oldest is in his first year of college at Ventura Junior College. The family is living on Texaco lease land in a rental home supported by his father who still works for the oil company. Fern is keeping house for them all.[viii]

After high school, Herbert attended Ventura Junior College. He was also an instructor for pilot training at Silver Lake, which was an Air Force facility in California during WWII.[ix] Herbert participated in fun, games and visiting at family reunions of the Mercer Family.[x] At the time of his draft registration for the military, he was working at Harvey’s Airport, a general aviation airport[xi], in Blythe, California.[xii]

HIS MILITARY STORY

Herbert Edward Mercer joined Ventura, California’s first flying cadet corps in 1941. They were to be trained as a unit. [xiii]

From June of 1942, he was attached to the Sixth Ferrying Group of the U.S. Army Transport Command.[xiv]

The Army Transport Command operated under several names. It was established as the Air Corps Ferrying Command on May 29, 1941, just 4 months before Herbert joined in September. The name changed again five months later to Army Air Forces Ferry Command. In July of 1942, it then became the Air Transport Command. It was inactivated after the war in June of 1948. It was reinstated under a variety of names from the 1960s onward.[xv]

As a pilot with the U.S. Army Transport Command, Herbert was involved in the essential movement of supplies, equipment and personnel. He was part of a worldwide delivery system to support war on two fronts.[xvi]

In May of 1943, Herbert was promoted to First Lieutenant.[xvii]

Another big change in his life came the next month. Marba Spencer, of Price, Utah, became a June bride and Herbert’s wife. Wearing a color matching the First Lieutenant’s uniform and a gardenia corsage, they were married in the Normandy Wedding Chapel in Long Beach.[xviii] The newlyweds then lived in Long Beach.

Herbert was operating out of the ferry command at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma then he was transferred. In the fall of ’43, Herbert was moved to Long Beach, California with the Army Air Forces Ferry Command.[xix]

HIS LAST DAY

On September 30, 1943, Herbert was ferrying a P-51 plane on a routine flight.[xx] He was a part of a group of four ferrying the Mustang fighter planes.

He took off from Tinker Army Air Field in Midwest City, Oklahoma flying the P-51-B, serial number 43-6373, as part of the First Ferry Squadron in the Sixth Ferry Group.[xxi] He was heading to Memphis, Tennessee.[xxii]

Once aloft, he was cleared on an instrument flight path which required that he fly at an altitude of 3,900 feet directly to Memphis. About 15 minutes after take-off, the plane was observed at a very low altitude. A later investigation showed Herbert was trying to regain contact beneath the low ragged ceiling which was accompanied by poor visibility, mist and fog. At the time, he was off course by about 20 miles.[xxiii]

According to the Okmulgee Daily Times newspaper in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, his plane was observed flying low and then heading groundward. The plane’s wings, engine and propeller were torn from the fuselage in a 75-yard swath of Earth. The remaining parts of the plane burst into flames.[xxiv] The crash was two miles east and one mile north of Nuaka, Oklahoma.[xxv]

He was 22.

Two years later, his sister, Petty Officer Henrietta F. Mercer, lost her life too. She was 23.

HIS GRAVE AND FUNERAL

First Lieutenant Herbert Edward Mercer is buried at the Santa Paula Cemetery in Santa Paula California. Two years after his burial, his parents buried his sister, Petty Officer Henrietta Fern Mercer, near him. The siblings are both in Section E of the cemetery.

AFTER THE WAR

Of Herbert and Fern’s children, only Walter came home from WWII and lived a long life. Walter Wayne Mercer, a Seaman Second Class in the U.S. Navy, did his training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois and then was stationed in Point Loma, California.[xxvi]

FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE

Read about Herbert Mercer’s sister, Henrietta Mercer, who also died during the war.

Read about the Important Air Transport Command: “From Lend Lease to the Hump” at the Warfare History Network.

See the Video “Air Transport Command’s Contributions to the U.S. in WWII

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

ADD TO THIS STORY

If you noticed anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author. Click on the author’s name located at the bottom of the story page next to the words “added by.” Click on the author’s name to find the contact link.

[i] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14942125/herbert-edward-mercer

[ii] https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4532374_00235?pId=93550172

[iii] https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4532374_00235?pId=93550172

[iv] http://www.sjvgeology.org/articles/history_of_calif_oil.pdf

[v] https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4532374_00235?pId=93550172

[vi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/628684658/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[vii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/628684658/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[viii]

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00364-00458?pId=74891631

[ix] https://www.newspapers.com/image/624428102/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[x] https://www.newspapers.com/image/624425014/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xi] https://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_Riverside_E.htm

[xii] https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2022/10/14942125_846e244e-0bb2-445e-a549-6e9dbb4991e6.jpeg

[xiii]

https://www.newspapers.com/image/624365830/?terms=%22Herbert%20E.%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xiv] Okmulgee Daily Times, October 2, 1943

[xv] https://www.afhra.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/968648/air-mobility-command/

[xvi] https://amcmuseum.org/history/air-transport-command-airlift-during-wwii/

[xvii]

https://www.newspapers.com/image/624423523/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xviii]

https://www.newspapers.com/image/624428102/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xix] https://www.newspapers.com/image/624497711/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xx] https://www.newspapers.com/image/624423523/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

[xxi]https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/AARmonthly/Sep1943S.htm?fbclid=IwAR0T0u4JkpJwQ6kfANXqc6w8vlKzPKk5f6BN9qeBW2ZkSVNxRQiO2CtjSvM

[xxii] AAF Form #14 Aircraft Accident Report. 9/30/43

[xxiii] AAF Form #14 Aircraft Accident Report. 9/30/43

[xxiv] Okmulgee Daily Times, October 2, 1943

[xxv]https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/AARmonthly/Sep1943S.htm?fbclid=IwAR0T0u4JkpJwQ6kfANXqc6w8vlKzPKk5f6BN9qeBW2ZkSVNxRQiO2CtjSvM

[xxvi]

https://www.newspapers.com/image/624442840/?terms=%22Herbert%20Mercer%22&match=1

1st Lt. Herbert Edward Mercer