In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14 but died on April 15. Exactly 47 years later, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 14 but completely capsized on April 15. Another 45 years after the Titanic’s sinking, two sergeants with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Dept. (LASD) died in a plane crash. The crash occurred near the Malibu coast on April 15, 1957, when the two sergeants were searching for two other planes that crashed on April 14.
The death of one of those sergeants was not included in three memorials that have occurred since the crash. However, in May, more than 57 years after Sgt. Raymond Willis lost his life during an aerial search of the two planes that crashed one day earlier, the Sheriff’s Dept. will finally honor of their own.
A narrative was distributed amongst the press this week, detailing what had happened on those two days in April 1957 and chronicling Willis’ life.
According to Lt. John J. Stanley of the LASD, flying conditions on the morning of April 14, 1957, were not ideal for flying. Still, 19 planes of the Progressive Flying Club took to the skies, taking off from Hawthorne Airport near LAX and heading northwest to Santa Ynez Airport in Santa Barbara County.
Two of the planes crashed that day, claiming five lives.
Sgt. Vernon Corbeil piloted a plane in an aerial search of the second aircraft that crashed on April 14, Stanley wrote in his story. His passenger was Willis. At about 11 a.m. on April 15, Corbeil and Willis died in their own plane crash just short of an emergency airstrip in Puerco Canyon (which is adjacent to Pepperdine University in Malibu).
The date and time were memorialized as the “End of Watch” for both sergeants.
Willis was eight days shy of his 34th birthday when the plane he was a passenger in crashed.
At the time of the crash, Willis’s sworn status as an LASD sergeant was not recognized. When a county memorial was held in 1971 to honor fallen Sheriff’s deputies, Willis was not included in the remembrance. The oversight persisted in state and federal memorials as well.
In May, the omission will be corrected and Willis will be properly honored on the county, state, and federal memorials, Stanley wrote.
“Sergeant Raymond Willis was an LASD trailblazer,” Stanley recounted in his almost 2,000-word essay, adding Willis was the department’s first polygraph technician and assigned to work in the Crime Lab.
Hired by the Sheriff’s Dept. in 1955, Willis had previously served as an officer with the Los Angeles Police Dept. (LAPD) for about seven years and also worked in the Crime Lab. Willis was a crime scene photographer prior to becoming a polygraph technician.
Born in Canton, Ohio, in 1923, Willis would have celebrated his 91st birthday on April 23.
After serving in the Navy during World War II, Willis moved to Glendale, Calif., in 1945 before buying a home in nearby Pacoima a year later.
“In addition to at last receiving recognition for his line of duty death, Ray Willis’s accomplishments as the LASD’s first polygraph technician can also be acknowledged,” Stanley wrote. “The men and women of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department appreciate the sacrifice made by this trailblazer and are glad that he is at last receiving the praise he so richly deserves.”
