Memorial

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1st Lt Walter H. Steiner Jr. attended college.

He volunteered for the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in Los Angeles, California on 14 April 1942.

Statement from 1st Lt Keith R. Aldrich, Flight Leader: "I was leading second element in Red Flight with Lt Steiner as wing man on an armed reconnaissance flight near Metz. We had dropped our bombs and were strafing vehicles several miles east of Metz. St Steiner´s engine started to smoke and he called, saying he was losing oil and was heading home. I went with him. We switched to 'C' channel and tried to get an emergency homing to 'Corridor', but due to radio interference could not receive them. Ripsaw finally got around to giving us a heading, saying we were sixteen miles south of 'Corridor'. We were at seven thousand feet at the time, and approximately one minute later Lt Steiner said that his engine was quitting and he was going down through the overcast. We broke out at about five thousand feet and Lt Steiner tried to find a field to crashland in. Failing to locate a suitable field, Lt Steiner said he was going to bail out. He jettisoned his canopy at two thousand feet, slowed the ship up, and I observed it to stall then nose down and crash in a wood approximately ten miles south of Verdun. I did not see Lt Steiner leave the ship. The ship crashed at 1640 hours."

He was first buried at the Temporary American Military Cemetery of Andilly, France.

He is buried next to his brother Cecil.

According to a newspaper article in the The Sacramento Bee of 16 March 1946, the parents of the Steiner brothers just came into possession of this photograph. The picture, together with other ones, originally was planned by the sons as a gift for Christmas 1944.

In August 1944, Lt Steiner, who was stationed in France, obtained the address of his brother, then in England. He flew to visit him and the brothers had their photographs taken together by an English photographer. After the death of Lt Steiner an enlarged picture of the brothers was received by the parents. Because of censorship, however, there was no address of the photographer on the picture or package. When Mrs. Steiner was looking over possessions of her sons in January 1946, she happened to hold the paper in which the photograph was wrapped to the light. Beneath a seal she read the address of the photographer in Leicester through the paper. She wrote to the photographer and he sent, with his compliments, two dozen postcard prints of her sons. The pictures had been ordered and never called for due to the son's orders to actions and their deaths.