Woonsocket Radio News Room

Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame announces 2024 honorees who will be recognized at November 23 dinner

Awardees have Cranston, East Providence, North Kingstown, Newport, Providence and West Warwick connections, and include attendees of Central, Classical, East Providence, North Kingstown, and West Warwick High Schools

 

PROVIDENCE— The RI Aviation Hall of Fame will induct five new members and honor four others with special recognition awards as part of their 22nd class of honorees. The Hall of Fame will also announce a new initiative involving a scholarship program and present a special recognition to the RI Airport Corporation. The ceremony and dinner will take place at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Cranston Saturday evening, November 23rd. Reception is at 5:30PM; dinner and awards will follow.

 

Guest of Honor

Vice Admiral Peter Garvin, US Navy, President of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. An Annapolis grad, he is a career Naval Aviator who served until August as President, US Naval War College in Newport.

 

Special Guest

Domenic Giarrusso of Cranston, who served for 28 months as a B-24 flight engineer and mechanic in North Africa and Italy during WWII. He will be 102 years old in January.

 

Robert M. Magown/Edward F. Roberts Scholarship Fund

 

On March 9, 1966, a twin engine aircraft returning to RI from South Carolina crashed in Virginia, killing Colonel Robert M. Magown, CO of the 143rd Air Commando Group and Lt Col Edward F. Roberts, Operations Officer of the Group. After their deaths, the Magown-Roberts Scholarship Fund was established with the Rhode Island Foundation to provide educational assistance to Air Guard members and their families. RI Aviation Hall of Fame will be working with the Fund and the Foundation to expand eligibility for scholarships and promote their availability. The first step will be to honor both Magown and Roberts at this event.

 

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend this dinner. Tickets cost $65 each and can be obtained by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or logging in to our website at www.riahof.org. For further information, please call 401-831-8696.

 

Honorees are selected by a committee representing several aviation groups. The committee includes all previous inductees, such as Robert Crandall, former chairman of American Airlines; Jennifer Murray, the first woman to fly a helicopter around the world; and Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders.

 

 

Here are short bios of each honoree, in alphabetical order. De Souza, Garvin, Giarrusso and Lopes are still living; the other awards are posthumous.

 

 

  

CW5 Mark De Souza, US Army (1970- ) of North Kingstown, currently serves as a full time flight instructor in RI Army National Guard. DeSouza joined the Marine Corps Reserve at the age of 19, then switched to the RI National Guard in 1987. He served as a helicopter mechanic for the Army Aviation Battalion for six years before earning his wings from Warrant Officer Candidate School in 1993. He is the senior warrant officer in the state, with both rotary and fixed wing qualifications. DeSouza has accrued more flying hours (almost 10,000) than any other active Guard pilot. He has deployed three times to Iraq, once to Kuwait, and once to Colombia; and has flown numerous Army aircraft in 38 countries and territories.

 

Robert “Bob” P. Douglas (1930-2023) of Johnston joined the Navy in 1948, serving in Antisubmarine Warfare Squadrons as an an enlisted air crew member/Electronics Technician. He was stationed at Quonset Point from 1949 to 1951 and deployed aboard the USS Tarawa on a 1951/1952 Med cruise. He was a radio/radarman aboard an unarmed AD-3W “Guppy”, the airborne early warning version of the legendary Douglas Skyraider. After his discharge he never lost his passion for airplanes; he loved aviation history, and his main hobby was building scale model aircraft. In 1979 he was appointed as an Operations Specialist with the Rhode Island Airport Corporation at TF Green State Airport. He retired in 1990.

 

Vice Admiral Peter Garvin, US Navy, had his tenure as President of the US Naval War College in Newport cut short in August by his promotion and subsequent assignment as President of the National Defense University in Washington. He is a 1989 graduate of US Naval Academy, where he earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering. He became a Naval Aviator, spending his flying career in Patrol units, culminating in his command of Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing (CPRW) 10. As a P-3 Orion pilot with Patrol Squadron (VP) 45, he was named 1995 Pilot of the Year by the Association of Naval Aviation. Senior shore assignments included stints on the Joint Staff and the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. He was an executive fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as executive assistant to the vice chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

Domenic Giarrusso (1923-) is a 101-year-old Army Air Corps flight engineer and mechanic from Cranston who served in North Africa and Italy during World War II. He enlisted in December 1942, earned his certificates from St Louis School of Aeronautics in May, 1943 and joined the newly-formed 312th Depot Repair Squadron at Rome, NY. They deployed to North Africa in August 1942. While there he answered an “all hands on deck” call for volunteers for a combat mission. In December 1943 his unit deployed to Italy, where he remained until late 1945. After the war, he worked as an aircraft mechanic and supervisor at the Naval Air Rework Facility at Quonset Point until the based closed in 1973.

 

Staff Sergeant Rene A. Leger, US Army Air Corps  (1920-1942) of East Providence was probably the first Rhode Islander lost in the European Theater during WWII. He died August 9, 1942 when his B-24 went down on a raid against a convoy trying to resupply Rommel’s forces in Benghazi, Libya. Leger enlisted in January, 1942 and joined the newly-activated 98th Bomb Group, deploying in July 1942. Leger’s 415th Bomb Squadron flew its first mission just six days later, on July 31. Within two weeks of his arrival in Palestine, Staff Sergeant Rene Leger was dead. He is buried at the North Africa American Cemetery in Tunisia.

 

CW5 (Ret) Joseph A. Lopes, US Army (1937- ) of West Warwick retired in 1997 after 43 years of service. He first enlisted in the Marine Corps, qualified as a mechanic in the Air Force and earned his pilot rating (rotary and fixed wing) with the RI National Guard. In 1968 he joined Air America, with whom he flew clandestine CIA missions in Laos for six years. He then joined Bell Helicopter and served as a helicopter instructor in Iran. Next, he conducted heavy lift missions in Saudi Arabia as Chief Pilot for Carson Aviation. In 1978 he rejoined the RI Guard as a Warrant Officer, finishing his career as the Maintenance Officer for Army Aviation. He accrued more than 11,000 flight hours in his career.

 

COL Robert M. Magown, US Air Force (1921-1966) was a WWII fighter pilot who rose to command the 143rd Air Commando Group of the RI Air National Guard. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in January, 1942 and flew 161 combat missions in the Pacific, primarily in P-40 Warhawks, with the 70th and 44th Fighter Squadrons. Magown earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and ten Air Medals. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1948 and joined the 152nd Fighter Squadron of the RI Air Guard as a captain in 1949, flying P-51 Mustangs. After enduring the many reorganizations that took place in the 1950s, Magown was promoted to LTC in 1958, taking command of the 143rd Troop Carrier Squadron. In 1963 he was promoted to full colonel, and also worked as a full-time supervisor in the air technical detachment at Hillsgrove.

 

LTCOL Edward F. Roberts, US Air Force (1924-1966) was born in 1924 in Fall River, MA, grew up in Swansea and was working at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport when he registered for the draft in 1942.

He flew transport planes in the Pacific theater receiving the Air Medal and the Philippines Liberations Medal. After the war he began a career in the Postal Service, also joining the Massachusetts National Guard. Roberts was called to active duty during the Korean War. He transferred to the RI Air National Guard in May of 1956, earning a promotion to major. In April 1962 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and took command of the 143rd Troop Carrier Squadron. At the time of his death in 1966 he was Operations Officer of the 143rd Air Commando Group

 

CMSGT (Ret) Adolph Scolavino, US Air Force (1920-2017). During WWII, the Providence native was a flight engineer and gunner on B-17 and B-24 bombers in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater. From August 1942 to November 1943, he flew 56 combat missions totaling more than 400 combat hours. Those missions included the first-ever raid deep into China, two 2700-mile missions to Bangkok and the longest over-water raid of the war.   He survived one bailout and two crash landings. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and multiple air medals. After the war, he flew B-29s assessing the result of A-bomb testing. Chief Master Sergeant Scolavino retired from the Air Force in 1969 after 30 years’ service.

 

Harris Award for Commercial Aviation

 

The Harris Award is given to an individual or organization who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of commercial aviation though technology, exploration, bold initiative or a lifetime of service. William C. Harris (1906-1963) launched commercial air service for American Airlines at Hillsgrove in 1936, and he was the dean of commercial aviation in this state until he retired in 1962. Harris was inducted into the RI Aviation Hall of Fame in 2022, and his family wished to perpetuate his memory through this award.  This year’s recipient is the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, which is being honored for the positive impacts of its operations on tourism and the overall economy for the past two decades.