SCHLOSSER, Walter O | Fields of Honor

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Personal info

Full name
SCHLOSSER, Walter O

Date of birth
8 March 1923

Age
21

Place of birth
Michigan

Hometown
Lake City, Missaukee County, Michigan

Military service

Service number
16083944

Rank
Staff Sergeant

Function
Left Waist Gunner

Unit
856th Bombardment Squadron,
492nd Bombardment Group, Heavy

Awards
Purple Heart,
Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster

Death

Status
Finding of Death

Date of death
7 July 1944

Place of death
Westeregeln, Germany

Grave

Cemetery
American War Cemetery Henri-Chapelle

Tablets of the Missing
* This soldier has been accounted for. A rosette has been placed next to his name.

Immediate family

Members
Hazel I. Schlosser (mother)

Plane data

Serial number
44-40145

Data
Type: B-24J
Destination: Bernburg, Germany
Mission:Bombing of the Junkers-Zweigwerke aircraft factory
MACR: 7231

More information

S/Sgt Walter O. Schlosser worked in a metal factory before he joined the Air Corps of the US Army Reserve in Detroit, Michigan on 21 August 1942.

On the way back from the mission, the Luftwaffe caught the Group without any fighter protection. The 492nd lost a dozen of their planes.

The initial MIA report thought the crew might had gone down in the Baltic Sea. Later reports suspected they had gone down in the North Sea. Almost sixty years later the wreckage was discovered near the initial battle zone.

The excavated remains of the crew were sent to Hawaii for DNA identification. Evereyone in the crew was positively identified except for S/Sgt Cotey. However his ring and dogtags were found in the wreckage and forensies were able to conclude his remains are among the parts from which DNA could not be extracted.

Leonard Ray was buried in Maryland on 5 October 2007. Robert Flood was buried in Pennsylvania on the following day. Hyman Stiglitz was buried on 28 December 2007 in Tucson, Arizona. The other four identified through DNA were buried at Arlington on 12 June 2008 along with a mass buriel for the entire crew which contains all of the remains that could not be identified.