Available July 22, 2025
Book 3 in the Heart of St. Mary’s County Series
Diane Alvey is a public affairs officer for the U.S. Navy’s Patuxent River Naval Air Station and is creating a History Hall to document the air station’s origins. She has just uncovered a secret stash of papers and ephemera…which includes Frances Parker’s World War II diary.
Frances Parker is a brand-new member of the U.S. Navy WAVES, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Along with multitudes of other women, she is attempting to navigate her way through life during dangerous and uncertain times.
It is August 1943, and war has come to St. Mary’s County. The newly built air station is home to aircraft and ordnance testing, as well as a growing population of workers coming together to defeat a common enemy.
It is also home to murder.
When someone close to Frances is found dead, everyone around her is convinced that it is an accident…or so they say. Frances is suspicious of so many people seeming to sweep the matter away, but she is threatened by unknown forces when she attempts to uncover who really committed the foul deed.
Intrigued by Frances’s riveting story, Diane sets about trying to learn why someone may have been murdered during the early days of the naval base’s construction…and who was responsible for it.
When Diane unveils the shocking truth, she learns that she’s not the only one who knows what happened all those years ago…and someone will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from getting out.
Backstory
The idea for this story came when someone in casual conversation said to me, “Did you know that training exercises for the D-Day invasion of Normandy took place down here?”
Upon hearing it, I was at full alert. How had I not known about this in all the years I had lived here? I immediately began digging into the World War II history of St. Mary’s County, not realizing that my little community was such an important player in the war.
The Navy viewed the area as a good, centralized aviation testing site in the general Washington, D.C., area that was large enough, and reasonably isolated enough, to allow for exhaustive aircraft test and evaluation. At the time, test facilities were divided across several stations located in Hampton Roads, Virginia; Dahlgren, Virginia; and Anacostia, Washington.
As a former Navy civilian, I can say that when the U.S. Navy decides something, it is decided. The same was true in the 1940s, when the area known as Cedar Point saw itself torn up, to be quickly replaced by a naval air station.
Although the Navy initially called it Cedar Point Naval Air Station, it was determined that “Cedar Point” sounded too much like “Cherry Point,” the name of a U.S. Marine Corps air station in North Carolina, and eventually commissioned it as Patuxent River Naval Air Station in April 1943.
Excerpt
With my boss’s blessing, I had initiated a “History Hall” to document the history of Pax River via museum-type wallpaper along both sides of the main hallway at the building’s entry. I planned to strategically hang various artifacts to punctuate the write-ups of important people and events that had occurred since the station’s commissioning in 1943.
I worked for Lieutenant Commander Patrick Barry, the station’s director of communications. He looked as Irish as his name sounded and he had gladly mentored me in my role as a public affairs officer.
“Fabulous idea, Diane,” he had said when I suggested it to him. “You’ll need to visit the Morgue for what you need.”
I was taken aback by the suggestion, not realizing that a set of doors at the end of an upstairs hallway hid the cavernous room that lay before me now, full of any historical artifact one could want. Provided one was willing to dig through hundreds of boxes for the pearls among the oysters, of course.
I was so excited about my project that I was willing to dig.
To date, I had found sheafs of papers concerning the initial construction of the base, including lots of procurement documentation. I would have to whittle that information down to a few paragraphs for my History Hall.
I had also discovered photographs of previous commanding officers that I planned to have restored and placed in the hallway.
There were also various yellowed newspaper articles concerning the base and old newsletters stored in binders that were full of interesting facts and pictures. I had even found a couple of yearbooks from the first few years of the base’s founding. In perfect condition, they were chock full of photographs of sailors eating, working on aircraft, taking smoke breaks, and even dancing with young women in front of a brass band.
Today there were few actual sailors at Pax River, as the base now consisted mostly of civilian and contractor employees. It was fun to glance through the yearbooks and imagine the story behind each individual gaze on me from its little rectangular picture.
The artifact I had found that I couldn’t wait to hang in the hall was an old WELCOME TO NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER sign. Hand painted in blue and gold, it must have hung at the main entry gate many decades ago and I planned to make it the entry sign to the History Hall.
Before I got too far ahead of myself, though, I needed to make sure I collected everything I could find so that I could decide how to tell the story of Pax River in a way that would be fun and engaging to visitors.
Neither I nor the Lt. Cmdr. had ever been involved in such a project before, so it was a challenge in addition to being fun.
“So, let’s see what treasures you hold,” I said aloud, popping in my ear buds to continue listening to a cozy mystery novel featuring a murder-solving pink flamingo as I started to untie the string wrapped around the box. It was so old that as soon as I started fiddling with it, the string crumbled within my fingers.
I brushed it away from the top of the box and opened the flaps. I frowned at the contents as I pulled each item out. There were a few eight by ten, black and white photographs of young men in Marine Corps uniforms. The photographs had crease marks horizontally across the center of them, so they must have been folded at some point. Each of the handsome, fresh-scrubbed Marines wore serious expressions but I wondered what else I was seeing behind their gazes. Hope? Fear? Determination?
Which of them hadn’t survived the war?
There were also other formal portraits of men and women in U.S. Navy uniforms. I turned all of the photos over individually to see what might be on the flip side. They each had the same thing written on the back in tight, precise cursive.
1944
Just before it happened
Just before what happened?
Only two of these formal photos had names inscribed on the back, Master Sergeant Roger Douglas and Sergeant Kenneth Campbell. As with all the other portraits, the men were handsome and staring intently at the camera.
There was one other photo, this one smaller and more casual. It showed a group of women in smart-looking uniforms standing in front of a bus.
I put the photos aside and reached back into the box.
Also inside the box was a silk neckerchief, wrapped in old, brittle tissue paper. It looked like it belonged to a Marine Corps dress blues uniform. Unfolding the neckerchief, I found a gold button tucked in the center of it. Again, this appeared to be from a Marine Corps dress uniform.
I gently laid the items aside. Right now, I could only assume they belonged to one of the men in the photographs.
More items in the box included a combat knife in a leather sheath—the leather in nearly perfect condition except for a little green mold on it. I slid the knife out. There were dark rust stains on the blade that I didn’t want any details on. I slid it back in and laid the sheath aside.
My hand touched a small leather presentation box. Inside was an old Navy-Marine Corps medal that appeared to have never been worn. I recognized it because I had had a distant uncle who had received one of these medals during the war.
I tried to remember what Uncle Billy had done to earn the medal. Wasn’t it for a rescue of fellow troops? I would have to talk to my Aunt Poppy. She was the family historian and would instantly remember.
I gently lifted the medal out of its box, holding it in my palm and examining it. The top ribbon consisted of three equal, vertical stripes in navy, gold, and red. Beneath this was an octagonal bronze medal, depicting a globe overlayed with an eagle holding an anchor. The word “heroism” was inscribed beneath the globe.
I presumed it belonged to whomever owned the neckerchief, button, and knife. I wondered why they were in an old box of office goods instead of stored with someone’s family memorabilia.
Next in the box was an old, World War II era gas ration sheet. I’d heard of these but had never seen one. This one was labeled as an “A” ration. The coupon’s owner, according to the handwriting on it, was a Sophie Russell. What was an “A” ration worth? Three or four gallons, I imagined.
The coupons had not all been used. This was interesting as I imagine they were as valuable as gold during the rationing of the war era. Maybe the war ended before all of the coupons could be used.
I laid the coupon book next to the neckerchief, button, knife, and photo. Ah, here was something that might be interesting for the History Hall. I lifted out an old, yellowed edition of the St. Mary’s Beacon. The date was Monday, June 19, 1944, and the headline was enormous.
Drowned Body Found off Cedar Point
The body of a man wearing a U.S. Marine Corps uniform was found washed ashore at Cedar Point on Friday, June 16.
Capt. Milligan “Sparky” Nickerson, the executive officer for the Marine barracks security department, stated that, “We have accounted for our detachment members. Therefore, we are investigating where this body may have come from, whether an actual Marine or someone who was simply wearing the uniform. Regardless, we offer condolences to the family of this man, whose life was cut short by this terrible accident in the Patuxent River.”
The Navy has taken possession of the body for an autopsy and will release further information as appropriate. The public is requested to avoid circulating unfounded rumors while the investigation takes place.
Slashed across the entire article in red ink was the word, “LIES.”
Excerpt copyright 2025 Christine Trent
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