WW2 Fallen - B-24 pilot Richard Lawson

Second Lieutenant Richard Lawson served in 454th Bombardment Group.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63050671/richard-curtis-lawson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/454th_Bombardment_Group#World_War_II

Richard Curtis Lawson never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WWII fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War II fallen in one free-to-access central database. We are going to need a lot of volunteers. Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

 

He was born on July 14, 1920 in Dallas, Texas. His parents Richard and Lille were also both born in Texas. His father worked as a traveling salesman. Richard had one sister. He studied at Texas Technological College after completing high school and was a college varsity football player. He married Evelyn Baumgardner in June 1939. Before the war he worked for West Texas Gas Company.

He enlisted in the army in October 1942 and decided to apply to fly in the Army Air Forces. He was trained to fly B-24 Liberators. He went overseas in March 1944. He became a second lieutenant in the 737th Bombardment Squadron, 454th Bombardment Group.

On April 15, 1944 Lt. Lawson was killed when his B-24 crashed on takeoff from its Italian base.

His grave is at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas. I don't know what happened to his widow.

Thank you Lt. Lawson for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Richard.

This is one of the final 100 stories (51) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.

Last year on this date I profiled Monte Cassino fallen Ernest Donato, 88th Infantry Division. You can read about Ernest here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org