Dale Claude Detjens

First Lieutenant Detjens volunteered and enlisted in the the Enlisted Reserve Corps of the US Army Air Forces in June 1942. He received training as part of Class 44-A at Goodfellow Army Airfield in San Angelo, Texas. He graduated from his flight training on Jan. 7, 1944, and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant. He was later sent to Barksdale Army Airfield in Louisiana, where he trained on B-26 Marauder bombers. Shortly thereafter, on Aug. 17, 1944, Detjens was assigned to the 574th Bombardment Squadron of the 391st Bombardment Group where he was promoted to 1st lieutenant and flew B-26 Marauder bombers out of RAF Matching in England and, later, Roye-Amy Airfield in France. Detjens was an accomplished pilot with at least 15 missions and the Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Cluster awards. On Dec. 23, 1944, 1st Lieutenant Detjens was piloting the B-26C "Jinx, Snake's Revenge" on a bombing mission from Roye-Amy to an intended target of a railroad viaduct in Ahrweiler, Germany. On the second bombing run over the target, the formation was intercepted by enemy aircraft who hit Detjen's B-26 with accurate fire, damaging both engines. Sadly, he and his co-pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Frederick T. Kaye, were likely either killed or severely wounded, as a crewman tried reaching him over the intercom system to no response. The plane began to rapidly descend and lose control before crashing to the northwest of Ahrweiler. Of the six crewmembers aboard the B-26, two were able to bail and were taken as prisoners but survived the war. Despite the wreckage of his B-26 being discovered after the war, Detjen's remains have never been recovered, and today he is memorialized on the Wall of the Missing at the Luxembourg-American Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg. He was awarded the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Presidential Unit Citation, and the Purple Heart.