Webster scholarship to help city youths

Webster was a Warren guy, a patriot and a friend, said the chairman of Fox News.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
WARREN -- The youth of Warren will benefit from an endowed memorial fund established in the name of Douglas M. Webster, a 1959 graduate of Warren G. Harding High who was killed in a training accident during the Vietnam War.
Webster was a navy lieutenant junior grade Naval pilot when his A-4 Skyhawk aircraft fell off a deck elevator of the USS Ticonderoga aircraft carrier and sank in the Pacific Ocean in 3 miles of water off the coast of Japan. Neither the plane nor his body was recovered.
The Douglas M. Webster Memorial Fund was established in his memory by his family, fellow members of the Naval Air Corps, and friends, including Roger Ailes, a 1958 Harding graduate and chairman of Fox News.
Contributions can be made in Lt. J.G. Webster's memory to the fund administrator, the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, 11 Federal Plaza, Suite 1600, Youngstown 44503.
Ailes said he and Webster were like brothers growing up.
"Our mothers worked together at the American Cancer Society, and our fathers worked at Packard Electric. We swam to together at the YMCA and went on Y-sponsored canoe trips to the Canadian North Woods," Ailes said.
Purpose of fund
"We established the memorial fund because we don't want anybody to ever forget that there was a guy named Webster from Warren who lost his life in the service of his country. He had a great future ahead of him," Ailes said.
Webster died Dec. 5, 1965, at age 24. Not much was known at the time about what happened. But it was later learned that Webster's plane carried a nuclear bomb in an area prohibited by an agreement with Japan. It wasn't until May 1989 that the Pentagon confirmed a clandestine U.S. nuclear operation during the Vietnam War.
"I suspect the weight of the bomb shifted in the plane. They were testing a dangerous weapon in a dangerous time. He volunteered for the assignment. He was a real patriot," Ailes said.
Webster had flown 17 combat missions in the Vietnam War before the accident, but because he was on a training mission when he was killed, his name was not eligible for placement on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
However, Webster's service was recognized last spring at the In Memory Day ceremony in Washington, D.C. In Memory Day recognizes people who died because of the war but were not killed in combat. He was nominated for the honor by his stepbrother, Michael Rawl of Lewes, Del.
Patriotic life
Rawl, a 1964 Harding graduate, said he and Ailes and the rest of Webster's family and friends established the memorial fund to provide scholarships for low-income kids at the Warren YMCA.
Webster grew up on Edgewood Street and spent much of his time at the Warren YMCA. He was vice president of his class at Harding and graduated in 1964 from Ohio State University, where he was co-captain of the gymnastics team.
"Doug was very, very smart. He read all the time and was a physical fitness expert and was a very courageous guy. The sad thing is, if Doug were here today, he would be an admiral in the Navy or a senator from Ohio or a business leader," Ailes said.
"He was a product of Warren, an American patriot, and he was my friend."
alcorn@vindy.com