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2nd Lt Wayne L. Dyer graduated from Hobart High School and Weatherford College.

He entered the Air Corps in 1942 and was sent overseas in April 1944.

The airplane was attacked by enemy fighters. It dropped out of formation with #3 engine afire and the left aileron and wing damaged. It began to fall behind formation but was, at that moment, still under control. It crashed and sunk in a marsh.

Six crew members survived and were taken prisoner, four men were killed.

Bodies recovered from the crash were believed to have been buried in a local cemetery. After the war ended, there was no evidence of Dyer being a prisoner of war or having survived, so a Finding of Death was issued a year after the crash.

The American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) was charged with recovering the remains of fallen service members in the European Theater following the war. They were able to find the remains of one of the crew members buried in a cemetery in Horst during a search in September 1946. After 1950, worsening diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, who controlled this part of Germany at the time, prevented the AGRC from investigating further. Dyer was declared non-recoverable on 21 April 1953.

In July 2012, an investigation team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a DPAA predecessor organization, found the crash site and recovered evidence of a B-17 crash. In 2015, DPAA received permission from the land-owner to excavate. DPAA contracted History Flight, Inc. to excavate the site, which they did between 17 July and 12 August 2019. They recovered possible material evidence and possible remains, which was first turned over to the local authorities and then sent to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for scientific analysis.

To identify Dyer’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on 19 September 2022 that 2nd Lt Wayne L. Dyer was accounted for on 9 September 2022.

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

2nd Lt Wayne L. Dyer was laid to rest on 10 April 2023 at Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas.

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