| Hometown | Civilian Occupation |
| Wilmington, Delaware | Chemist assistant for Hercules Powder Company |
| Branch | Service Number |
| U.S. Naval Reserve | 8263346 |
| Theater | Unit |
| American | Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 22 (possibly on temporary duty with Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine) |
Early Life & Family
Anthony Salvatore Montour was born at 2132 North Market Street in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 12, 1924. Nicknamed Andy, he was the son of Anthony Arthur Montour (also known as Anthony Arthur Montore and Antonio Montoro, 1905–1949) and Mildred M. Montour (née Mildred May Masten, later Mildred M. Campellone, 1908–1987). His father was a barber. Newspaper articles also indicate he had several half-siblings. He was Catholic.
Montour’s parents had married as teenagers and had an unhappy relationship. They were estranged by September 7, 1929, and divorced on September 21, 1931. Montour was raised mostly by his mother. His parents both later remarried.
During his youth, Montour’s family had his photo published in The Evening Journal to celebrate his birthdays. As of October 12, 1930, he was attending the Bancroft School and living at 302 East 4th Street in Wilmington. By the following year, when he turned seven, Montour was living at 405 South Van Buren Street in Wilmington. One year later, when he turned eight, Montour was living at 1117 Kirkwood Street and still attending the Bancroft School. Montour graduated from Brown Vocational High School in 1942.
As a youth, Montour taught himself to draw and paint. The Wilmington Morning News printed an article about his artistic endeavors on July 24, 1942, noting:
He amuses himself drawing friends and when he was a student at Brown Vocational School, where he studied chemistry, he sold drawings to the school’s athletes of themselves in various action poses.
Montour works in colors, brush, pen and ink, wash, or combinations of these mediums.
The article added:
His mother, Mrs. Mildred Campellone, said her son had always spent a great deal of time drawing.
“When he was a youngster in school,” she said, “I used to get notes from the teachers complaining that Andrew [sic] marked up his composition papers by drawing little pictures of animals at the bottom.”
During his youth, Montour also wrote to famous artists and cartoonists. The article mentioned that Montour had “collected original drawings from such luminaries as Walt Disney, who sent him a complete Donald Duck sequence[.]”
Noting that Montour would be starting work for the Hercules Powder Company on July 27, the journalist lamented that that Montour planned for a career as a chemist rather as a cartoonist, quoting him as saying chemistry “will give me more of a chance to be successful than cartooning.”
Montour later told the U.S. Navy that he enjoyed painting with oils in addition to drawing cartoons. Aside from his artistic hobbies, he stated that he had been president of a chemistry club and played football. He described his civilian work experience as three months operating drill presses in a machine shop before he was hired as a chemist assistant by the Hercules Powder Company in July 1942, earning $25 to $30 per week assisting with research into synthetic rubber.
When he registered for the draft on December 21, 1942, Montour was living at 623 Madison Street in Wilmington and working at the Hercules Experimental Station. The registrar described him as standing five feet, six inches tall and weighing 135 lbs., with black hair and brown eyes.
Military Career
In early 1943, Montour was evaluated to determine his suitability for military service. He was rated I-A by Wilmington Local Board No. 1 on March 2, 1943, and was drafted the following month. According to his personnel file, Montour voluntarily enlisted after induction into the U.S. Naval Reserve at Camden, New Jersey, on April 21, 1943, making him a “selective volunteer.” When he entered the service, Montour was described as standing five feet, 4¾ inches tall and weighing 123 lbs., with brown hair and eyes. He was placed on inactive service for one week.
Apprentice Seaman Montour went on active duty on April 28, 1943, at the U.S. Naval Training Station, Bainbridge, Maryland. After completing eight weeks of boot camp on June 22, 1943, Montour was promoted to seaman 2nd class went on leave until July 1, 1943.
On July 13, 1943, Montour was dispatched to the Naval Air Technical Training Center, Jacksonville, Florida, for Aviation Radioman School. He arrived the following day. Montour completed the training on November 20, 1943, with a score of 85.762 out of 100 and ranked 37 in his class of 61. Montour was promoted to seaman 1st class three days later.
Montour’s superiors determined that he was a good candidate to serve as aircrew. On December 7, 1943, he was transferred to the Naval Air Gunners School, Jacksonville, Florida (Yellow Water Naval Air Gunnery School). He completed a course of training there on machine guns on January 19, 1944. The following day, he transferred to an operational training unit equipped with the Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber, Scout Bombing Squadron 6 (VSB-6), at the U.S. Naval Air Station, DeLand, Florida, for a 10-week combat aircrewman class. On March 19, 1944, after completing the course and accumulating 57.7 hours of flight time, Montour was promoted to aviation radioman 3rd class. Two days later, he was ordered to report to Commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Vice Admiral Patrick N. L. Bellinger (1885–1962), at the Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia, for reassignment.
Montour went on leave from March 21, 1944, until April 7, 1944. The following day, he reported to the Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia. On May 18, 1944, he was transferred to Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 24, reporting for duty one day later. However, that same day, May 19, 1944, he was transferred to Bombing Squadron 85 (VB-85), a dive bombing squadron which had just been commissioned four days earlier at the Naval Air Station, Wildwood, New Jersey. Equipped with the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, VB-85’s cadre of 13 battle hardened fliers began training the rest of the squadron for overseas service. Stateside training was not without risk: a pair of separate crashes that July claimed a total of four lives in the squadron.
During August 5–8, 1944, VB-85 moved to Otis Field, an auxiliary naval strip at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts. On September 22, 1944, Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Montour was transferred to Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 22, arriving the following day. The unit was headquartered at the Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, but had detachments at several naval airfields scattered across New England.
According to his personnel file, on September 28, 1944, Montour was transferred to the “Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine, for temporary duty in connection with the Rocket Training Program” per the orders of Commander Fleet Air, Quonset Point, Commodore Gordon Rowe (1896–1974), under whose administration many naval training units in the northeastern United States operated.
At the time, aircraft could be armed with unguided rockets, which American forces typically used for air-to-ground attacks. N.A.S. Brunswick was responsible for administering the Georgetown Island Rocket Projectile Range, including operating an aircraft rescue boat that “patrolled the seaward side of the range to keep out stray fishing vessels[.]”
The southern end of Georgetown Island was marshy and bisected by the Little River, so sailors used M29 Weasels, tracked utility vehicles obtained from the U.S. Army. Originally designed to travel on snow, the M29 readily handled mud and sand that would bog down any wheeled vehicle. At least one of the Weasels that Montour used was the M29C amphibious version. The M29C had several modifications including buoyancy cells, rudders, and side skirts to make the treads more effective when traveling in water. The M29C was most suited for inland waterways like ponds and streams because it had very low freeboard. That is, when swimming, the M29C’s hull sat only a few inches above the water, meaning that it was easily swamped. Operating it in the ocean or any other rough body of water would have been extremely dangerous.
Journal-Every Evening reported on December 27, 1944, that Montour had just spent a “a three-day leave with his mother, Mrs. Mildred Campellone, 623 Madison Street. He has as a guest, Miss Lee Donnell.” The news item foreshadowed a mystery that would emerge several months later.
Curiously, although his personnel file stated that he completed the temporary duty assignment on March 1, 1945, he evidently was still working at the Georgetown Island rocket range later that month. The month was unusually warm, melting the winter’s snow early. Journal-Every Evening stated: “While his outfit went on foreign service in October [1944], he was retained in Maine as an instructor in torpedo training” although this may have conflated the rocket training with torpedo training.
On the evening of March 24, 1945, Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Montour was traveling in an M29C with Seaman 2nd Class Arthur Francis McMahon (1926–1945) at the Georgetown Island range. While crossing the Little River—presumably near the mouth of the river by Todds Point—the vehicle’s engine stalled. As the name implies, the Little River is not particularly wide nor is its discharge particularly high, though it is subject to tides. A volunteer with the Bath Historical Society notes that the tide was going out at the time of the incident, adding: “The receding tide can be forceful.”
However it happened, a rescue log suggests the M29C drifted into the Gulf of Maine southeast of Georgetown Island, where Montour and McMahon were last seen desperately attempting to bail water out of their vehicle. Air-Sea Rescue Brunswick sent out a call for assistance at 1856 hours. A total of three 63-foot crash boats, one each from Booth Bay, Rockland, and Casco Bay, along with a Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina flying boat out of Brunswick, rushed to the scene. Navy rescue personnel, assisted by the U.S. Coast Guard and civilian fishermen, searched through the night.
There is no evidence that either Aviation Radioman 3rd Class Montour or Seaman 2nd Class McMahon were ever found. It is unknown if they drowned when the M29C sank or died of exposure in the Gulf of Maine.
On March 28, 1945, Journal-Every Evening reported: “When he became a casualty it was revealed he had been secretly married recently to the former Miss Lee Donnell of Bath, Me. Mrs. Montour is on her way to Wilmington to visit Mrs. Campellone.” Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Montour did not actually marry Aletta “Lee” Donnell (née Aletta Leona Rogerson, 1924–2006). If he did, he never reported it to the Navy. She remained in Wilmington for the next few months and gave birth at the Delaware Hospital there on November 22, 1945, to a son she named Andrew Salvatore Montour, Jr (1945–1995). After Lee remarried, she changed her son’s name to Andrew Salvatore Perruzzi.
Journal-Every Evening reported on July 14, 1945: “High requiem mass will be sung at St. Anthony’s R. C. Church at 9:30 o’clock next Wednesday morning” July 18, 1945.
On October 21, 1945, Montour’s 21st birthday, nearly half a column in Journal-Every Evening was devoted to six heartbreaking memorial messages from his mother, Lee, his stepfather, his cousin, his maternal grandparents, two uncles and an aunt. His mother’s read in part:
Though you are spending your birthday in heaven, / I am sure that you will hear / Every time I whisper softly, “Happy Birthday, Andy dear.”
When life threatens to make me blue / I cling to your memory to carry me through.
Feeling that som[e]where you are standing by / Ready to help me when you hear me cry.
Mildred M. Campellone continued to have memorial notices printed in Wilmington newspapers on the anniversaries of her son’s birth and death through 1958.
Since his death occurred stateside, Montour is not honored on the tablets of the missing nor sought by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, but his name is honored at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
Notes
Name
Montour’s birth certificate gave his name as Anthony Christopher Montoro, the only known source to use that name. Montour registered for the draft and served in the U.S. Navy under the name Anthony Salvatore Montour without suffix. Some newspaper articles and his mother’s statement list Montour’s name as Anthony Salvatore Montour, Jr. A newspaper article also referred to him as Andrew S. Montour, and Lee Donnell named her son Andrew Salvatore Montour, Jr. Although there are considerable variations in his father’s name in various records and newspaper articles, no known records list his middle name as Salvatore, nor with any suffix.
Parents
It is unclear how much time Montour spent with his father during his childhood, but it is also clear that his father did not support the family. On September 7, 1929, when Every Evening reported that Montour’s father was arraigned “on a charge of non-support brought against him by his wife, Mildred, 506 Market St.” The following year, Wilmington newspapers reported that on May 20, 1930, the elder Montour was sentenced to one year in a workhouse and fined $500 plus court costs for failing to support Montour and his mother, plus $25 for contempt of court for an outburst against her during the trial.
Montour’s parents divorced on September 21, 1931. Although Montour’s father did not contest the divorce, it did not end the acrimony between the couple. Early on August 12, 1932, Montour witnessed a confrontation between his parents after his father followed the car Montour was riding in with his mother. The incident led to his father being convicted of assault and battery, and his mother for disorderly conduct. Montour’s father was hit with another year in the workhouse and $500 fine on December 17, 1936.
Marriage?
Montour likely had a relationship with Aletta “Lee” Donnell, since she came with him to meet his mother in December 1944, and may well have fathered her child. Donnell had married in 1940 and must have been separated or divorced by the time she met Montour. In supplying information for her son’s birth certificate, Donnell identified herself as Aletta Leona Montour and stated she was married to Andrew Salvatore Montour, now deceased. However, it appears unlikely that the two married. If they did wed, he never informed the Navy of that fact, nor did he change his insurance beneficiary, which was his mother. On June 7, 1944, Montour filled out a data sheet. The instructions noted:
This strictly confidential sheet is available to you and you alone, at any time. Whenever a change in your affairs, even a seemingly minor change takes place, it is recommended that you make a note of it on this sheet, together with the date, or fill out a new form.
The sheet allowed Montour to request up to four people be notified in case of his severe injury or death. He listed only his parents, though the list did not have to be restricted to family. If he had been in a relationship with Donnell at that time, he could have included her on the form or added her later but did not do so.
Although the birth of a son to Mrs. Anthony Montour on November 22, 1945, was printed in the Wilmington papers, no grandson was listed in Mildred Campellone’s obituary as a survivor. She also told the State of Delaware Public Archives Commission that her son was unmarried. The statement was not dated, but since Journal-Evening reported the secret marriage two days after his disappearance, it must have been filled out after that.
Parsing that information is difficult. It could be that Montour’s mother came to doubt Lee’s claim that they had married or that her son was the child’s father. It could also be that she had fallen out of touch with her daughter-in-law and grandson by the time her obituary was printed.
Since the availability of historical marriage records varies widely from state to state, it is difficult to prove that a marriage did not occur. But perhaps the strongest evidence against the couple having married was the fact that when she remarried in Massachusetts in 1946, her name was recorded as Aletta L. Donnell (Rogerson), not Aletta L. Montour.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the Delaware Public Archives, the Bath Historical Society, and the Brunswick Naval Aviation Museum for providing information and photos.
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Last updated on November 11, 2025
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