WW2 Fallen - Distinguished Flying Cross hero and P-47 pilot Daniel McKinnon

Distinguished Flying Cross hero Captain Daniel McKinnon served in the 405th Fighter Group in France.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71675616/daniel-artemus-mckinnon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:405th_Fighter_Group_-_P-47D_42-25507.jpg 

Daniel Artemis McKinnon, Jr. 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 WW2 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 2 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.

Daniel was born on June 12, 1920 in Mississippi. His parents Daniel and Mary were also both born in Mississippi. His father worked as a commissary clerk and later as a grocery store merchant and carpenter. Daniel had one older brother and two older sisters. 

He volunteered for the Army Air Corp in September 1939 and was first trained as a mechanic. He was accepted into flight school and qualified to learn to fly fighter planes. He was a flight instructor for the first part of the war. He arrived in Europe in August 1944. He eventually reach the rank of captain and squadron leader in the 405th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, which was equipped with P-47 Thunderbolts. Captain McKinnon mainly flew tactical missions supporting the advance of units in Patton's 3rd Army. He successfully lived through the destruction of two of his planes.

Captain McKinnon flew his final mission on January 10, 1945. He was shot down over Luxembourg or Germany and declared missing. His death was later confirmed. Captain McKinnon earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.

His grave is at Pachuta Cemetery in Pachuta, Mississippi.

Thank you Captain McKinnon for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Daniel.

You can find more details about Captain McKinnon at his findagrave.com memorial.

This is one of the final 100 stories (83) 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 B-17 copilot Robert Anderson. You can read about Robert 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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Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100

WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org