Memorial

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Leonard Ray was raised on the family farm, he quit school to join the Maryland National Guard.

He first flew anti-submarine patrols on the east coast of the United States.

With the 492nd Bombardment Group, he was one of the senior crew members, in part because he had turned down a promotion to lieutenant in order to stay with his crew.

The week prior to his death, he was aboard a plane, shot down in enemy territory, but escaped with the help of some French citizens.

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

In 1945 he was declared dead by the United States Army. At that time his father erected a headstone in his memory at the cemetery. In 2002 Leonard Ray was found at the crash site and in October 2007. Ray was laid to rest in the plot his father had made for him.

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.