Cletus Patrick Bedore

Second Lieutenant Bedore enlisted Aug. 27, 1942, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was the navigator of a B-24 Liberator. In March 1943, he was called to active duty. He was sent to Miami, Florida, where he completed his Basic Training in April 1943. From there, he took his Pre-Flight Training at the University of Pittsburgh. Soon after, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant upon completing his training at the Selman Airfield Navigation School near Monroe, Louisiana. Bedore did his post-graduate work at Davis-Monthan Airfield in Tucson, Arizona. In July of 1944, the second lieutenant was deployed overseas and assigned to the 8th Air Force in England. Bedore became the navigator on the B-24 Liberator s/n 42-50861 of the 557th Bomb Squadron, 392nd Bomb Group and had completed 23 missions by Dec. 29, 1944. On that day, Bedore and his crew took off for a bombing mission against a railroad target in Neuwied, Germany. While flying over Saint Vith, Belgium, Bedore's B-24 was hit by flak. Remarkably, the pilot, Lt. D.L. Walker, was able to maintain control of the bomber until it could successfully drop its payload on the target. Immediately after bombs away, the B-24 lurched off to the side of the formation and disappeared. They weren't heard from until the next day, when the surviving crew sent a teletype informing the higher-ups that they had successfully bailed out. Unfortunately, two of the nine crew were killed when their parachutes failed to open. These two were S/Sgt Thomas M. Bradford and Second Lieutenant Cletus P. Bedore. Bedore was temporarily buried in Belgium until the cemetery was closed in July 1948. His remains were brought home in March 1949, and he was reinterred with military honors at Greenwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona, alongside his father and his brother.