| Graduation Year | Class of 1938 |
| Date of Birth | Jul 29, 1919 |
| Date of Passing | Nov 02, 1942 |
| About | Charles Oscar Richardson was born and raised near Charlevoix, Michigan. He was the son of Oscar Steven Richardson and Catherine Hemrock. His father had died in 1930 and his mother in 1931. Charles was about ten years old at the time, and he and his siblings were separated after their deaths and went to live with various people who took them in during the Depression. He graduated from Charlevoix High School in 1938 and was part of Charlevoix’s 1938 runner-up basketball team at the state finals. He worked as a deckhand on a steel freighter on the Great Lakes before World War II, and he enlisted in the Army Air Corps on November 1, 1941, in Wausau, Wisconsin. at the time of his enlistment, he was employed as an electrician. Charles served as a Sergeant & Engineer on PBY-5A Catalina #43-3266 (amphibious aircraft), U.S. Army Air Force. Charles was declared "Missing In Action" in the "Line Of Duty" when his PBY-5A, after completing the first leg of a routine flight, was taking off for the return trip to base when it capsized in rough weather in the eastern Gulf of Saint Lawrence during the War. In 2009, Canadian government divers came across what was believed to be the wreckage of a USAAF amphibious plane that went down in the St Lawrence River in 1942. It was later verified to be PBY-5A Catalina #43-3266. In 2012 his remains were recovered from the site, identified with DNA evidence, and interred in Arlington National Cemetery at Section 60 Site 11032 on September 17, 2015. |
