Memorial

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1st Lt Noel Shoup graduated from Dublin High School in 1936. He attended college and was a storekeeper.

He volunteerd for the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in Lubbock, Texas on 21 March 1942.

According to the navigator, who survived the mission, the airplane was hit by flak and immediately fell into a spin and exploded in mid-air.

One crew member was taken prisoner, two men evaded capture and returned to England and seven men were killed. They were initially buried at a British WW I cemetery in Abbeville, France.

According to witnesses before the B17F crashed near the village of Le Translay, France, three airmen parachuted successfully, seven crew members were killed, five were recovered and identified and the remaining two including Shoup were not identified. At the time of the crash, German forces recovered six sets of remains, near the village of Wiammeville, France and were buried in the English World War I Memorial Cemetery at Abbeville on March 2, 1944.

In 1945 an American graves registration team disinterred the six sets of remains from Abbeville and reburied them in the United States Military Cemetery at St. Andre (USMC St. Andre), France. Graves registration personnel designated one set of unknown remains as X-452 St. Andre.

Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), Army Quartermaster Corps, was the organization tasked with recovering missing American personnel in the European Theater. In March 1947, following unsuccessful attempts to identify X-452, AGRC investigators transferred X-452 from USMC St. Andre to the Suresnes American Cemetery. He was declared non-recoverable on 26 December 1950.

In September 2017 two French researchers led a DPAA Investigation Team to an aircraft crash site in Wiammeville, France. Which resulted in subsequent investigation and recovery efforts in 2018, finding material evidence and osseous remains.

In October 2019, X-452 St. Andre was disinterred from the Suresnes American Cemetery and transported the remains to the DPAA laboratory for forensic analysis.
To identify Shoup’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used Y chromosome (Y-STR) analysis.

Shoup’s name is recorded on the on the Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes American Cemetery. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Lt Shoup is buried in Dublin, Texas on 11 September 2023.