“I consider these men as being as worthy of hero stature as the pilot of the U-2 planes, because even though they did not know that their lives were in danger, they did die while undertaking a project to help insure the safety of the free world.”
Markham Field MacLin, SB News Press, 17 June 1960
SEVEN MEN OF THE MARIE
A Father of Infrared, Sons of California, A Guest
Dr. Niel F. Beardsley, Scientist
Diego (Jim) S. Terres, Jr., Mechanical Engineer, Scuba Diver
H. James (Jim) McCaffrey, Captain, Scuba Diver
James (Jim) Russell, Engineer, Section Manager, & Scuba Diver
L. Dale Howell, Scuba Diver, Crew Member
Harold (Hal) H. Mackie, Jr., Electronics Engineer
Paul T. Lovette, Guest (No photo available to date)
Dr. Niel Freeborn Beardsley, 68, Raytheon staff scientist and consultant, was considered a pioneer in the art and science of the field, especially infrared. Dr. Beardsley had been influential for 14 years in the militaries (seeing in the dark) technology. During World War II, he pioneered optical shop techniques for the Manhattan project, and liked it so much that he continued the work at the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
At Wright-Patterson, he monitored contracts and was especially proud of the contract at Syracuse University, N.Y. for detector research because it was still in force after fourteen years. Dr. Beardsley wrote of this project, “What was my role? I kept the money going there when money was hard to get, and I kept them following a middle path, doing some basic research, some design and development of cell construction, and the actual delivery of a limited number of finished, flyable detector cells, the best ever made.” Dr. Beardsley regarded the people who carried out the research as his “family.”
Dr. Paul Ovrebo of ATIC, under who he was then working, reports, “It was said at Syracuse University during the early years of their detector research that a pall hung over the place for three days after his visits. And yet this vigorous insistence on rigor, turned out some of the most significant results.”
When Dr. Beardsley joined Dr. Paul J. Ovrebo in infrared work at the Wright Air Development Center (WADC) in 1946, he had behind him a long career in the teaching of physics.
Dr. Levinstein, who directed the Syracuse University research under the Air Force contract wrote, “It is my feeling that Dr. Niel Beardsley, more than any other person in the U.S., was responsible for the rapid IR detector development in the period between 1948 and 1958.”
“A Father of Infrared,” said Bob Wilke of Dr. Beardsley. Wilke, a Raytheon-related project team colleague and survivor as, “I was supposed to be on the MARIE that day.”
Beardsley was a native of Wadsworth, Ohio, he obtained his B.S. degree at Hiram College in 1913 and taught elementary school for four years. During WWI he taught at Ft Sill, Oklahoma. In 1920 he earned his M.S. at Northwestern University. And for the next nine years he was part of the faculty of Georgia Tech., leaving to join the Physics Department of the University of Chicago. Here he remained for seventeen years, receiving his Ph. D. in 1932 and continued as Instructor and later as Assistant Professor.
Dr. Beardsley moved to Santa Barbara area May 1959. Dr. Beardsley was lost at sea, never recovered June 7, 1960.
Original source: Dr. Maxwell Krasno, IN MEMORIAM DR. BEARDSLEY, Proc. IRIS, 6, (1961). Declassified 6-Jan-10 for Teresa Newton-Terres and the MARIE Commemoration, by the Research Reports Library of the Naval Research Laboratory. Infrared Symposium Proceedings (Proc. IRIS) were published by the Office of Naval Research.
Source: SOME EARLY LEAD SALT DETECTOR DEVELOPMENTS, US Air Force publication.
Image of Dr. Beardsley… appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
Diego (Jim) S. Terres, Jr., Mechanical Engineer
Diego S. Terres, Jr., 29, went by the name Jim. Jim graduated from Santa Barbara High School prior to graduating from California Polytechnic University’s with a BS in mechanical engineering. He served in the Navy during the Korean War as a jet engine mechanic aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown. He was an accomplished scuba diver, diving wet-suit craftsman, pilot since age 14, and general sportsman. He had worked for Raytheon’s Infrared Division for less than a year. His next of kin included a wife and four children as well as a Father Diego S. Terres, Sr., mother, Marie, and brother, Albert Terres. Jim Terres was lost at sea, one of the three victims never recovered.
Jim’s father Diego S. Terres, Sr. immigrated to Santa Barbara, California, as a youth from Spain after his family of origin indentured in Hawaii serving the sugar plantation on the North Shore of Oahu …. later, Diego Sr. became a developer in Old Town Goleta, California.
* Image of Terres appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
H. James (Jim) McCaffrey, Crew Member
H. James McCaffrey, 29, known by family and friends as Jim. He was the hired Captain of the MARIE, project scuba diver, and part owner of the McCaffrey Sporting Goods store with Richard Dowse. He graduated from Santa Barbara High School and attended the University of California at Santa Barbara. He served in the Army and was a Korean War Veteran. His next of kin at the time of his death was a wife who was expecting their fourth child. Jim McCaffrey was lost at sea, one of the three victims never recovered.
“His father (Hugh) and uncle (William) founded the McCaffrey Bros. store here before the turn of the century (1899) after first having established the business in San Luis Obispo. In the early days it was a liquor store, later a combination liquor and sporting goods store … specializing in guns and skin-diving equipment.” Santa Barbara News Press, “In Sea Tragedy” June 10, 1960.
* Image of McCaffrey appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
James (Jim) Russell, Mechanical Engineer & Section Manager
James C. Russell, 32, had been with Raytheon for four years and was an infrared section manger as well as project manager for Dr. Beardsley’s infrared project that ended up on the MARIE. A native of New York, he had lived in California for twenty years. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1951 with BS in mechanical engineering. He was with Gillfillon Brothers, lnc., of Los Angeles before joining Raytheon. He was known to be an avid skin (scuba) diver. At the time of his loss, his next of kin included a wife and daughter as well as his mother and brother.
He was the fourth victim recovered near Pt. Mugu, Tuesday, 21 June 1960. The county autopsy listed the cause of death as shock, due to exposure, and or asphyxia, due to drowning.
* Image of Russell appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
L. Dale Howell, Scuba Diver, Crew Member
L. Dale Howell, 32, was employed by Churchill Sheet Metal in Santa Barbara for seven years and worked nights for a local commercial gymnasium as well as serving as a contract scuba diver as needed. Dale was an accomplished scuba diver and all-around sportsman who served for two years as the President of the Santa Barbara Skin-divers Club. He served in the Army at Point Barrow, Alaska, with the Seventh Armed Cavalry Division in Korean, and at the Army’s Arctic Fighting and survival school in Japan. He grew up in the Goleta area and was a Santa Barbara High School graduate. He also took pilot’s training at SB Airport. Dale’s father, the late Loren (Butch) Howell, was the 1958 man of the year in Goleta, California. Dale left behind a wife and four children.
Dale was the third victim recovered on 15 June around 6:00PM by a Navy boat 11 miles southeast of Port Hueneme. Apparently, he was fully clothed and wearing a life preserver. The Ventura County Coroner determined cause of death to be shock due to exposure.
* Image of Howell appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
Harold (Hal) H. Mackie, Jr., Electronics Engineer
Harold H. Mackie, Jr. 32, was an electronics engineer with Raytheon the four years prior to his work on the MARIE’s infrared project. He served in the Navy as aviation electronics technician from 1946 to 1948. Known to many family and friends as “Hal”,he was a native of Santa Barbara and graduated from UCSB in 1953 with a BS in physics. He met the former Betty Lou Curtis of Santa Barbara at an Alhecama Theater production and were later married in 1955.
* Image of Mackie appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
Paul T. Lovette, Guest (In search of a photo)
Paul T. Lovette was 37 at the time of the MARIE incident. He had moved to the Santa Barbara area four months prior to joining the Raytheon researchers and the crew on the MARIE. He worked as a salesman for Vic Tanny’ gym in Santa Barbara. North Carolina was claimed as his home of origin and there he was put to rest.
The MARIE Commemoration Art, “Real-time Luke-15”, multimedia, by Teresa Newton-Terres, tells the story found in her Grandmother Terres’ dusty secret scrapbook. The art became a way to visually understand and tell the story. A display of the project team and men shows the seven from the bottom up, in order to help tell the story 1960. This artwork tells of the past and present. The men are displayed from the bottom up in the order in which victims were recovered and the three who disappeared 1960 – Lovette (Thu 9-June), Mackie (Fri 10-June), Howell (found 15-June), Russell (21-June); The three who displayed from the bottom up to the top – McCaffrey, Terres, and Beardsley.
The Marie Commemoration art piece was initially created for a Luke-15 Art Festival sponsored by Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, Arkansas.
MARIE LEGACY & THE COLD WAR:
The MARIE and its Raytheon-related project team disappeared serving an effort during a HOT time in the COLD WAR; yet, after years . . . we know so little.
Join me on this journey in the revelation of the … MARIE EVENT’s Legacy!
Source:
Mystery of the Marie: Memoir of how my childhood Tragedy Surfaced a Cold War Secret, 60th Anniversary Extended Edition, TNTpress, 2022.
Marie Remembered
Rare footage of the MARIE on a fishing trip with two men lost on it June 1960, Diego Terres Jr. and his friends including Dale Howell, Documentary (19min, see 7:33-8:03 min): https://vimeo.com/428533239?share=copy
Images of men first appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Friday Evening, June 10, 1960
The Scrapbook & Search
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