Memorial

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S/Sgt Bobby J. Younger graduated from Boyd High School and attended Texas A&M one semester before he enlisted in Dallas, Texas on 11 November 1943. He was sent overseas late in July 1944.

Sgt Younger was participating in a raid on the synthetic oil plant at Merseburg, Germany, when the plane was attacked by 75 enemy aircraft and was shot down in flames. Only three of the nine crew members escaped, taken prisoner by the Nazis and returned to the States recently. In a letter to his brother, Lt. Col John Frank Younger, written the day before he was reporting missing, he stated he was eligible for the Air Medal and one Oak Leaf Cluster. He held the European Theatre of Operations Ribbon with one or more battle stars.

Statement from Hubert F. Donohue, 1st Lt, O-760993, 323rd Bomber Squadron:
"We were flying at approximately 23,000 feet altitude, just after bombs away. We were trying to catch the formation when I noticed aircraft B-17G, 42-97234, falling back. We maintained our air speed to catch the group formation and he was unable to stay in a favorable position due to the increase in the air speed. At this time we had several enemy fighter attacks and subject fighters, he burst into flame, peeled off to the left, and started downward in about a 45 degree dive. The aircraft was completely in flames. I then lost sight of the ship immediately afterward. I saw no parachutes leave this aircraft."

The crash site for Bomber Dear has been positively identified by the DPAA/JPAC in the summer of 2015. The site will be returned to in Spring, 2016 as an archaeological dig to try and obtain bone fragments of the men aboard the plane when it crashed. There may have been 6 men aboard when it crashed.

On 5 October 2017 the DPAA/JPAC offically anounced that the remains of Robert Shoemaker, John Liekhus, Allen Chandler, Bobby Younger and John Brady, who are all remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at Henry-Chapelle, have been accounted for. They now all have their final resting place at the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Viriginia.