Memorial

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S/Sgt Henry L. Stevens attended Ouachita Parish High School for fours years and was an architect.
He joined the Air Corps of the Regular Army on 16 January 1941 in Jackson, Mississippi.
The airplane was hit by flak in the vicinity of Bitburg, Germany. It took damage to the right engine, resulting in a massive fire which forced crew members to bail out.

The following statement is from 2nd Lt Ellis D. Sutier Jr, who was the bombarbier and survived the mission: "I was bombardier in ship 42-96309, flying in position number four. The ship was hit by flak. Three men had left the ship, when the pilot lost control of the ship and it was beginning to spin when I left the ship. I left the ship by the forward bomb bay. After my parachute opened I was especially alert for others to leave the ship but none did. I saw the ship explode. I did not investigate the crash as I had landed about three miles from the crash. There was definitely no chance for anyone else to leave the ship."

Four crew members survived and were taken prisoner, three men were killed.

Surviving crew members watched it crash near Winville with several men, including S/Sgt Stevens still onboard.

A few days after the crash, several Belgian residents recovered one set of remains from the crash site and turned them over to American forces operating in the area. American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel initially identified the pilot, while the other set of remains remained Unknown. By 26 December 1944, everyone from Stevens’s aircraft had been identified and accounted for except for Stevens, and he was declared non-recoverable.

In 2013, DPAA personnel returned to the crash site near Winville, Belgium, where they recovered materials associated with the crashed B-26. Later in 2019, while working in conjunction with researchers from the University of Wisconsin, possible remains were located and sent to the DPAA laboratory for testing and possible identification.

To identify Stevens’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and autosomal DNA (auSTR) analysis.

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

Stevens has been given his final resting place on 8 March 2024, in Bushnell, Florida.