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Thanks for the info - my uncle wasn't talked about much when I was growing up, mid-western values taught to cover up such things and not show emotion.

My father was able to see a Marauder in a museum and completely broke down when he saw it - he was the kid brother and remembered my grandmother screaming and screaming and screaming in her upstairs bedroom, she fainted when the military personnel arrived to give her the news that her MIA son had been killed.

My cousin has done extensive research on the Marauder and its crews - my uncle replaced the pilot that day who'd gotten sick - that pilot survived the war.

Here is his photo with his crew:

I'm trying to get his Purple Heart that my aunt has (not related by blood) - that branch of the family is a dead-end. I'd like to give it to my son or nephew as we try to keep my uncle's memory alive.

We've decided as a family that none of our young will join the military.

My ancestors' military history ends in the mid-19th century (US Civil War, and my last immigrant male ancestor served in the army of his birth nation). In one or both sides of the family I have ancestors in the War of 1812, The Revolution, and King Philip's War. Prior the Great Migration, both my British Isles and German lines may have (likely did) serve in various tete-a-tete's like the Wars of the Roses, Hundred Years' War, 30 Years War, and the like.

My dad tried to enlist in WWII, but was flunked by his health history (and chest X-ray at the induction center). My wild and reasonable but quite unverifiable guess is, that rejection is one of those forks in the road that made my birth possible.

When Nixon ended draft registration I was too young, and when the peanut shell of a POTUS Dhimmi Carter resumed it, the earliest year was after I was born, so I got grandfathered right out of the process.