S2 LEIGH F. ANDERTON, WWII: Died after on-duty fall at Norfolk base

A sailor and a WAVE are shown on duty as spotters at the Naval Air Station Norfolk control tower c. 1944-45. They were keeping track of aircraft traffic which was heavy during wartime, not just in terms of the war in Europe, Africa and the Pacific but the coastal United States at the time. German U-boats were operating off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina in particular, attacking U.S. shipping, and aircraft from NAS Norfolk kept constant vigil, hoping to spot the interloper submarines. Irvington resident Seaman 2nd Class Leigh Francis Anderton died after a fall at NAS Norfolk in early 1945. WAVES stood for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a U.S. Navy Reserve designation. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, courtesy National Archives)

U.S. Navy Reserve Seaman 2nd Class Leigh Francis Anderton of Irvington was a bit of an oddity in the service. At age 30, he was rather old to be called to duty, but called up he was on Sept. 27, 1943, with the war well into its second year. Unlike most sailors, he was father to three — soon to be four — children.

S2 Anderton grew up in an apartment building at 54 Wildey Street in Tarrytown shared by a total of seven families. He was the third of four children and was just shy of his 10th birthday when his mother, Bridget (Mahoney) Anderton, died at age 44, leaving his father Edward Knapp Anderton II — who worked as a law clerk and later office manager of Wulff Engineering Co. of Tarrytown — to raise Mary 13, George 11, Leigh and Catherine 7.

After Bridget’s death, the family would eventually move to 34 Gordon Avenue in North Tarrytown (today’s Sleepy Hollow). Leigh eventually graduated from North Tarrytown High School and remained involved in its alumni programs.

Of average height, 5-foot-9 and with a slender 125-pound frame, Anderton found what work he could at the height of the Great Depression, going to work as a stock clerk in a local 5-and-10-cent store. He married fellow North Tarrytown resident Marie Cecilia Claven, two years his junior, on Dec. 20, 1937 at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church in North Tarrytown and by 1940, the couple had had their first two daughters, Patricia in 1938 and Lee in 1939 and were living with Marie’s father, Joseph and four of her siblings, in a single-family house at 31 N. Dutcher St., Irvington. Daughter Maureen would come in 1941.

Joseph Claven was an automobile inspector at North Tarrytown’s General Motors factory.

The young family would move to a house at 86 Main Street directly opposite Irvington Town Hall about three blocks from Joseph Claven’s house around the time of Maureen’s birth. Chillingly coincidentally, the houses on either side of 86 Main — 88 and 84 — had each once been called home by an Irvington World War I soldier killed in action in 1918 on the Western Front in France — Marine Private Philip McGovern at 88 and Army Private Louis Kindervatter at 84.

Irvington hosted a one-of-a-kind going-away party for Leigh and nine other Irvington Navy call-ups in September 1943. It was unique because it was rare that such a group would be headed off on the same day from the same town. The dance party was held at St. Paul’s Methodist Church at the northeast corner of Eckar and Main streets, today’s Isabel K. Benjamin Community Center. The local Irvington Gazette newspaper celebrated the event, which featured a band of members too young for the draft called the Star Dusters. Leigh apparently returned to Irvington briefly in November or early December and when he left, Marie, who was pregnant with daughter Veronica, made the decision to move to North Tarrytown in late January 1944.

Leigh Francis Anderton is pictured
c. 1930. (Photo courtesy Anderton

family, ancestry.com)

Leigh didn’t get to see much of his family after assignment to Naval Air Station Norfolk in Tidewater Virginia. He died at 6:45 p.m. on Jan. 11, 1945, two days after suffering a skull fracture and severe brain trauma from a fall at work on the base. His official cause of death was cranial oedema. His remains were shipped home and he was laid to rest at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with full military honors following funeral services at St. Teresa’s Church.

His widow, Marie, 30 when Leigh died, remarried almost 18 months later. Her new love, 10 years her senior, was World War II veteran Lachlan G. Campbell, also of Irvington, a Scottish immigrant who was working as a superintendent on the John D. Rockefeller Jr. estate Pocantico Hills. The couple had three children of their own by 1950, forming a large clan with the four Anderton girls. They lived at 12 N. Dutcher St., Irvington, next door to Campbell’s mother and sister at 10 N. Dutcher, on the same block as Marie’s Claven kin.

Marie lived in Irvington until her death in 2007. She was 91.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Leigh's older brother, George also served. He was drafted in the summer of 1941 but was discharged in January 1942 because of a pre-draft disability issue that apparently wasn't discovered until after he had served between seven and eight months.

Links to similar personal stories about Irvington heroes who gave their lives for their country*

WORLD WAR II

◼ Pfc. Cuthbert Powell Sinkking: Class of '42 gave 3 of its own to the ages

◼ Sgt. Arnold J. Meszaros: Among first to land on Utah Beach

◼ 2LT. Robert R. Chalot, Jr.: Son of French WWI pilot dies in dad's homeland

◼ Pfc. John Joseph (Joe) Gilchrist: Died after capture of Saint-Lo

◼ Lt. (j.g.) George Eddison Haines: Lost at sea, awarded Silver Star

◼ Pfc. Joseph Thomas Costello: Teen lost life in Battle of Mindanao

◼ MSgt. James Peter Kelley: Survived WW II and Korea; died in fall

◼ S1 Archibald Ronald: Lost on next-to-last Navy ship sunk by U-boat

◼ TSgt. Raffaele R. (Ralph) Reale: A hero's life ended on East Sunnyside Lane

◼ Sgt. Robert F. Morrison: Took fight to the enemy, fell in Alsace

◼ Lt. Col. George W. Beavers Jr.: Re-upped as private; died on war's eve

◼ F2 Claude L. Bronnes: Went down with the Atlanta at Guadalcanal

◼ MMLC William James Downey: Died aboard ship off West Coast

◼ Pvt. Alick Main Ian: Died taking Aachen, first German city to fall in WWII

◼ Pfc. George Mills Hill Jr.: Survived Okinawa, only to fall in South Korea

◼ Pvt. Peter R. Robinson: Lost to shadows of time over Pacific, answers never found

◼  Pfc. Matthew A. Smith: Felled by friendly fire in training accident

WORLD WAR I

◼ Profiles of Philip McGovern, Louis Kindervatter, George Hazlett, Frank Farrell and John Kelly Jr. who gave their lives in the Great War

* World War II deaths include soldiers who enlisted during the World War II era and died while still in uniform, either killed in combat, or died of accidental or other causes. Two of the World War II fallen served in both World War II and the Korean Conflict and are listed under World War II. One of those died in an accidental fall after surviving both wars, the other was killed in action in Korea after surviving World War II.World War I deaths also include battlefield deaths and accidental or illness-related deaths by service members still in uniform at the time of their passing.