Aug. 11, 1941: Walter P. Palmer and William S. Raney are killed when their plane goes into a spin during a flying lesson and crashes into a bean field at Woodley Avenue and Oxnard Street in Van Nuys, which is now somewhere in the middle of the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area.

Lee Shippey writes about the shortage of silk stockings and blacking out aircraft factories as the nation prepares for war. But not everyone is enthusiastic. An opinion piece by former Rep. Samuel B. Pettengill, “The Gentleman From Indiana,” questions whether Japan is worth a war.  “I sometimes think the chief reason for war is that mankind likes to go on a grand drunk at least once in a generation, plastered with slogans,” Pettengill writes.

FALSE ALARM: Nothing to those Barbara Stanwyck-Robert Taylor baby rumors; the new room is for a billiard table, which no stork is bringing, Jimmie Fidler says.

The Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area at approximately Woodley and Oxnard, via Google maps’ street view.