Memorial

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1st Lt Weldon L. Simpson attended Texas Technological Collage from 1938 to 1940 and was a flight instructor in civil life.

In 1942 he completed flight training he began at Oklahoma Air College and continued at Enid, Oklahoma Army Flying school. He entered the Army Air Corps the month of the attack on Pearl Harbor and was stationed at posts in Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Colorado before he was sent overseas in May 1943.

The airplane was attacked by two enemy aircraft which came in from twelve o"clock level. It seemed as though one of these enemy aircraft hit it in the cockpit, because as seen as the enemy aircraft had passed, it pulled up into a vertical climb and then did a halfroll to the right. The pull up was almost a loop, then after the halfroll it peeled to the right and started to spin. It made three complete turns in this spin.

Eight crew members were taken prisoner and one man evaded capture. Lt Simpson was the only casualty.

According to the co-pilot, Lt Agler, Lt Simpson was hooking on his parachute and heading for the escape hatch when the airplane went into a spin, possibly trapping him in the area around the hatch. His body was found in the wreckage by Belgian farmers. Two surviving crew members were taken to the wreckage to identify the remains of Lt Simpson. He was placed about 30 feet from the tail section and they could determine that he had been decapitated by a propeller blade. He was placed on the local baker's cart and taken to the town hall of Oostmalle.

Lt Simpson was initially buried at the cemetery of Fort 3 in Borsbeek, Belgium on 20 August 1943.