to her native Pensacola, Florida, where the couple met during Davis’ flight training. 30 October Prototype Boeing Model 299, NX13372, 'X13372', c/n 1963, the future Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, crashes on take-off from Wright Field, Ohio, due to locked control surfaces, killing early military aviator and test pilot Maj. Ployer Peter Hill. Other engineers taken to hospital with injuries. Boeing test pilot and observer Les Tower died later. Ogden Air Depot, Utah, renamed Hill Field, (later Hill Air Force Base), on 1 December 1939. As the prototype was owned by Boeing, it had no USAAC serial. 13 December A U.S. Army Air Corps officer, Major Arthur K. Ladd, is killed "instantly" in the ~1400 hrs. crash of a Boeing P-12F, 32–100, c.n. 1676, '60', the 24th of 25 of the model built, of the 36th Pursuit Squadron, into a swamp near the Wimbee River on Heyward Island, ~3 miles E of Dale, South Carolina, in Beaufort County, while en route from Langley Field, Virginia, to Miami, Florida, for the eighth annual All American air manoeuvers, an air race and exhibition held 13–15 December. "Major Ladd's body was badly mangled. Authorities from Parris Island removed the body about 5:30 o'clock this afternoon and carried it to Parris Island to await instructions. Major Ladd appeared to be between 40 and 55 years of age." (He was 45.) "Parris Island officers who visited the scene said they could not tell what caused the crash; neither did they know what Major Ladd's destination was, nor where he had come from. The orders he flew under were sealed, as is customary." Maj. Ladd was the assistant supply officer for the General Headquarters Air Force from its creation on 1 March 1935, working for Lt. Col. Joseph P. McNarney, supply officer of the GHQ force. Ladd had previously been assigned at Maxwell Field, Alabama, where he was an instructor in logistics movements of troops and supplies in the Air Corps Tactical School. Born in Texas on 1 November 1890, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of field artillery, Reserve Corps, on 27 November 1917. Investigation of the accident was halted pending the arrival of an investigating commission from Fort Bragg, it was announced on 14 December. "Colonel J. A. Rosell, of the marine station here, said Fort Bragg officers had been ordered here by the fourth corps commander at Atlanta. He added that, at their request,