Robert Fortune served in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) during the Vietnam War. A Navy pilot flying a F4B Phantom jet, he was killed on a training mission off the coast of Florida on March 11, 1969. Fortune and his co-pilot parachuted into rough seas 50 miles southwest of Key West. By the time rescue vessels arrived, the only sign of the pilots or their plane was an oil slick. Their bodies were never recovered.