Frank Otis

Frank Jesse Otis (19 June 1905 to 11 January 1937) was an American surgeon in Boston and a flight surgeon with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, remembered chiefly because an airfield was named for him. Born in Chicago to Frank J. Otis Sr. and Mabel Howe, he graduated from Harvard University Medical School and interned at Boston City Hospital. He served as a Second Lieutenant with the 101st Observation Squadron, based at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod. On 11 January 1937, while flying a Douglas O-46A to visit his parents in Moline, Illinois, his plane went down in the Illinois River near Hennepin, and the official military explanation was that he died on a cross country training mission. In 1938 the airfield at Camp Edwards was named Otis Field in his memory.