Memorial

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Capt. John H. Akin attended the University of Oklahoma with the class of 1937.

He served on the staff of Flying Instructors at Freeman Field.

Statement of 1st Lt William A. Cunningham Jr.:
"Captain Akin was hit while making a strafing pass near the town of Allrath. He called out that he was hit bad and was going home. I called his wingman to go with him but he was not able to locate Captain Akin. When I picked him up he was at 6000 feet and on a course home. I was able to see only one hole in the right wing and it had severed the aileron control causing it to buffet and make control of the plane extremely difficult. We received several vectors from our homer and came into the vicinity of the field. Captain Akin then headed west as there were some breaks in the overcast in that direction. He asked me to go down and check to see if we were over open country. When I had climbed back up again he was climbing to loose airspeed. He jettisened the canopy and had allowed down to 150 MPH but was unable to climb higher as there was a top layer of clouds at 6800 feet. His plane evidently stalled and fell of in a diving spiral to the right. Captain Akin jumped clear at about 5000 feet. I followed him and the plane down until it was necessary to pull out to get thru the lower clouds. His chute had not opened when I went into the clouds. I went underneath and circled the area and got a fix from fighter control but I was unable to find either his chute or the crashed plane. I searched the area for about 15 or 20 minutes and still could not locate the crash so I returned to base."

Cpt John H. Akin was first buried in a temporary grave at Margraten. He was disinterred on 23 July 1948 and given his final resting place on 21 February 1949.