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 Who was Herlong?

CAPTAIN HENRY WALTER HERLONG, the man for whom this community was named, was a native of Jacksonville, Florida, born August 27, 1911.

In June 1941, he met his death in line of duty in an airplane accident at LaGrange, Georgia, along with three companions who had set out to survey a military base in Tennessee.  Ten minutes after the plane took off, it plummeted to the ground.

In his military career, the captain served as a private in the First Chemical Regiment, Fort Benning and in July 1929 was appointed to the US Military Academy at West Point, from which he was graduated in 1933; then he served in a variety of assign­ments in the states and in the Philippines, enrolling in the school of aviation at Langley Field, Virginia in 1940. He was assigned to the 35th Air Base Group at Savannah, Georgia at the time of his death.

He was the son of Mrs. Harold W.H. Herlong of Florida. His father was a veteran of the Spanish-American War and World War I and was a commissioned officer in World War II. The Herlong family emigrated from Holland in 1750.