Memorial

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T/Sgt J. P. Holbrook was a graduate of Okolona High School and was a roof applicator.

He enlisted on 7 October 1942.

Statement of 2nd Lt. Merlin M. Goldberg:
"I was flying as pilot in no. 2 position of the 4th element, and at about ten seconds after bombs away I observed an explosion of a direct flak hit in the waist section of aircraft B-17G 42-97632. At this time I also saw what appeared to be a secondary explosion in the interior of the aircraft as fire shot out of the nose. The aircraft disintegrated from about the horizontal stabilizer to the trailing edge of the wing. The tail section floated back through the formation and the forward section nosed downward. No flames or smoke were visable. I saw no crew members leave the aircraft or parachutes open."

The entire crew was killed. The remains were taken to the Reserve Hospital 101, Olympia Village at Döberitz. They were initially buried at the POW Cemetery at Elsgrund-Döbertiz.

T/Sgt J.P. Holbrook was officially declared death in March, 1946. He was presumed to have died in an airplane crash in Germany. His remains had been recovered in a German prison camp Doberitz-Elsgrund in 1957. The identification was made by a "board of anthropologists", and by medical and dental records.

On 18 July 1957, T/Sgt J. P. Holbrook was buried at the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Kentucky.