16 August U.S. Navy L class blimp L-8, a former Goodyear advertising blimp, of ZP-32, departed Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, with crew of two officer-pilots. Five hours later the partially deflated L-8 is sighted drifting over Daly City, California, where it touches down sans crew. Nothing is ever found of Lt. Ernest D. Cody and Ensign Charles E. Adams. It is assumed that they were lost over water but were never found. The control car from this blimp is now in the National Museum of Naval Aviation, NAS Pensacola, Florida.http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/L-8_crash_site.htm 17 August Grumman XF6F-3 Hellcat, BuNo 02982, first flown 30 July 1942, suffers engine failure of Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10 on test flight out of Bethpage, New York, Grumman test pilot Bob Hall dead-sticks into a farmer's field on Long Island, survives unpowered landing but airframe heavily damaged. 17 August Messerschmitt Me 262 V3 fails to achieve flying speed on his first take-off in the type from Leipheim air field, overruns runway, crashing in an adjacent potato field, in the first Me 262. Both engines of the aircraft are torn from the nacelles, both wings damaged and starboard wheel shorn off, but the airframe is deemed repairable. The pilot was uninjured. 20 August Flight Lieutenant István Horthy (the son of the Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy), 37, serving as a fighter pilot with 1/1 Fighter Squadron of the Royal Hungarian Air Force is killed in Russia when his MÁVAG Héja ("Hawk"), "V.421", a Hungarian fighter based on the Reggiane Re.2000, crashes shortly after takeoff from an air field near Ilovskoye. 23 August Boeing B-17E-BO Flying Fortress, 41-9091, c/n 2563, of the 427th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb Group, operating out of Biggs Field, El Paso, Texas, suffers center fuselage failure in extremely bad weather 12 miles W of Las Cruces, New Mexico, only the radio operator and the engineering officer for the 427th Bomb Squadron, both in the radio room, survive by parachuting. Pilot was James E. Hudson. The 303rd BG was due to deploy overseas from Biggs on 24 August. 25 August The Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942) is killed while a passenger on a Short Sunderland Mk.III flying boat, W4026, 'DQ-M', of No. 228 Squadron RAF. Thirteen of 14 on board killed including the Duke of Kent, three members of his staff, pilot Flt. Lt. Frank Goyen, Wing