Lighthouse Project - Chapter Four: War years introduced SW
Florida to hundreds of soldiers  On the cusp: Many of them
returned to live here  First Lt. William "Bill" Savidge wears a
white-collared shirt embroidered with an airplane logo where a
left breast pocket would be. Sitting on a couch in his 10th
Street North house in Naples, the 89-year-old's large hands rest
steadily in his lap, except to show pictures of the fighter
planes he flew during World War II — AT-6s and P-40s."He was
very young, he was excited, and he loved to fly," said Betty
Briggs, Bill Savidge's daughter.  In January 1944, Bill Savidge
was assigned to the then recently built army airfield base in
Naples to train fighter pilots and bombers for the war.  Along
the way, he fell for a local girl.  It took six weeks for
Savidge to fall in love with and marry Olivia of the Storter
family, the family who founded Everglades City.  On their first
date, he took the Naples-born-and-raised "goody girl" to a
movie. To this day, neither of them remem