The following notice is from the Newark, New Jersey Evening News published on July 1, 1944:

First Lt. John L. Gage of Montclair, believed to be a pilot of one of the Superfortresses that bombed Japan June 15, died in Chengdu China, after an emergency appendectomy June 18. His mother, Mrs. William H. Gage of 64 Sunset Avenue, Montclair, was notified of his death by the War Department yesterday.

Mrs. Gage said her son flew a B-29 to India last December and later was based with the squadron in China. She said he wrote in his last letter he had "big news" but that it would be censored. Lt. Gage, 28, was born in Montclair and graduated from Montclair High School. Before entering Army service in 1939 he was a traveling accountant for Prudential Insurance Co. He was accepted for pilot training in 1941, and, after winning his wings, was assigned to fly B-17s. He the received special training in flying the giant forts.

Last Fall, Lt. Gage and his crew safely bailed out of a B-17 when it started to crack up at 25,000 feet over Wyoming. Besides his mother he leaves a brother, William Gage of Cambridge, Mass. His father, the late William Gage, was choirmaster and organist in the Methodist Church of Montclair. 

Newark Evening News - July 1, 1944