By Larry Reid
The war ended abruptly for John Watkins, a decorated WWII fighter pilot, after three of his five brothers were killed in combat, and Watkins was restricted to desk jobs. Only the Sullivan family, with five brothers killed, suffered a greater loss in WWII. His decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. Watkins left the military in 1945 as a lieutenant colonel.
Watkins joined The Providence Journal after the war as assistant to the publisher. He was named assistant publisher in 1950, then associate publisher in 1953. A year later, at age 41, he was named publisher and, in 1961, became the Journal Company president. Watkins was publisher of The Providence Journal for 25 years, from 1954 to 1979, and retired as chairman in 1985. He led the paper’s transformation from a 40,000-circulation daily overshadowed by its afternoon rival, The Evening Bulletin, to a respected regional newspaper whose circulation peaked at more than 218,000. He also pushed the company to expand into other areas, acquiring two radio stations and a cable television system. In addition to shepherding the business side of the newspaper, he was known for dispatching page proofs to editors with grammatical errors or misused words circled in red.
Watkin clashed with his editorial editor, James P. Brown, in 1967 over articles Brown wrote condemning the Vietnam War. Watkins suspended Brown’s weekly column, One Man’s Opinion, and refused to reinstate him despite a resolution to do so by the American Association of University Professors. Brown left for a position on The New York Times editorial board, where he continued editorializing against the war.
Watkins was born in Corpus Christi, Tex., on October 12, 1912, and started in journalism in 1934 as a reporter at The Dayton Herald and Journal in Ohio. A year later, he moved to The Sun in Baltimore, where his reporting assignments included riding aboard Pan American Airways’ Yankee Clipper on the first trans-Atlantic passenger flight in 1939. Watkins inherited a love of aviation from his father, a military pilot, and he left The Sun in June 1941 and joined the Army Air Force. He served as the operations officer for the 325th Fighter Squadron in the Mediterranean, flying 49 combat missions in P-40 and P-47 fighter planes and surviving at least one crash landing unscathed. The group was first activated in August 1942 as the 325th Fighter Group at Mitchel Field, New York. After training at Hillsgrove Army Air Field, Rhode Island, the group moved to North Africa in 1943, where it flew combat missions with the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation for actions over Sardinia for engaging a superior force of enemy aircraft and destroying more than half of them. The group was withdrawn from combat in the fall of 1943 and re-equipped with the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. After moving to Italy, the group re-entered combat, earning a second Distinguished Unit Citation in January 1944.
From April 17, 1943, the 325th Fighter Group achieved the following record: in aerial combat, 537 enemy aircraft were destroyed, 60 probably destroyed, and 89 were damaged. On the ground, 350 enemy aircraft were destroyed, and many more were probably destroyed or damaged. Other ground claims include 264 locomotives destroyed, 137 probably destroyed, 159 motor transport destroyed, 101 probably destroyed, 148 freight cars, oil cars, etc. destroyed, and 995 damaged. The group had 27 Aces, whose combined victories total 202 enemy aircraft destroyed in aerial combat. Recognition for the 325th Fighter Group’s personnel responsible for its record came in the form of the following awards: 9 Legions of Merit, 28 Silver Stars, 175 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 19 Soldiers Medals and45 Bronze Stars, and 236 Purple Hearts.
In 1983, Watkins retired as the Chief Executive Officer of the Providence Journal. He died in Newport at age 88. He was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1985.
Larry Reid is the president of The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.