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| Tech Sergeant Robert Buchanan B-17 radio operator, standing second from left. http://95thbg.org/j3migr/crews-p-r/view-image/284eb75538519bb1e8eb29195e03c568/jpg |
Robert Bowers Buchanan never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on May 31, 1917 in Utah. His mother was also born in Utah while his father was born in Scotland. His father worked as a newspaper reporter and later a county clerk. Robert had two older brothers and an older sister. By 1940 Robert was working as a clerk, having completed one year of college while living with his parents.
He was inducted into the army on May 20, 1942. He was assigned to the Army Air Corp and served in the 334th Bombardment Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force where he rose to the rank of tech sergeant. Sgt. Buchanan was a radio operator flying B-17s.
On January 29, 1944, the B-17 Lizbeth II, with Sgt. Buchanan as part of the crew, took off from their airbase in England for a major bombing mission totaling 863 bombers. The target was the industrial areas and railroad yards of Frankfurt. Lizbeth II sustain damaged from fighter attack during the mission. On the return leg it crash landed near Ghent, Belgium. Five of the crew survived but Sgt. Buchanan was not one of them.
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| The crew of Lizbeth II http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/19222 |
His grave is at the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
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!
To mark having over 100,000 visits to my project to honor the fallen of WW2 on their 100th birthdate, I created this video to share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY
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Thank you for this. Robert (Bob) was my great uncle. Although I never met him, I have been doing some research into his life and appreciate you honoring him here.
ReplyDeleteKristen,
DeleteWhen I wrote about your great uncle back in 2017, it was part of my blog project to write a story about one of the WWII fallen every day. I only had about 45 minutes to do each one.
I am sure you have more information to do a more complete job. I have moved on from my blog to a nonprofit initiative to tell the stories of all of the 400,000+ US WWII fallen. You can see more about this at www.storiesbehindthestars.org. Would you be interested in contributing a more complete story about Bob for this project? don@storiesbehindthestars.org