 |
| UNIT:
Marine Night Fighter Squadron 531
- U.S.S. Essex |
| RANK:
Staff Sergeant |
| BORN:
December 22, 1920 |
| WHERE:
Oak Ridge, Cape Girardeau Co., MO |
| DIED:
February 20, 1944 |
| WHERE:
Green Island, Soloman Islands |
| CAUSE
OF DEATH: MIA over Green Island,
Soloman Islands |
| BURIED:
Missing in Action Tablet* |
| MARKER:
Military Marker |
|
|
 Staff Sergeant Burnell
Bowers, twenty-three old son of Mr. And Mrs. E.
B. Bowers, 272 Collinsville Avenue this week was
dropped from the Marine Air Corps records and
assumed to be dead by the War Department. Sgt.
Bowers a radio gunner, was reported missing on
February 20, 1944 off Green Island in the South
Pacific. A week ago, relatives were informed that
the wreckage of Bower’s plane had been
found. Tuesday morning his parents received a
wire stating he would no longer be carried on
official records, although he has not officially
been pronounced dead by the government.Sgt. Bowers was born in Oak
Ridge, Missouri and moved to Cape Girardeau later
with his family. At the Central High School there
he was a member of the football and basketball
teams. He entered the service in March,1942,
after a short period of work for the Central
Packing Company in Cape Girardeau.
After training at
San Diego, Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale,
Florida and Cherry Point, North Carolina, Bowers
went overseas with a night fighter squadron in
September,1943. A month after his family moved
here last January, he was reported missing in
action.
Sgt. Bowers is
married to a young lady from Cape Girardeau, and
she lives in St. Louis now. His two brothers are
also in service, Pvt. Quentin Bowers, at Camp
Wolters, Texas, and Sgt. Ivan Bowers, in Palto
Alto, California. His sister, Mrs. Eileen
Wischmeyer, is here with her family now from her
home in California. Mr. Bowers is a government
packer.
Note:
*Memorialized on the Missing in Action Tablets at
Manila American Cemetery - Manila, Philippines
|
Sgt. Burnell
Bowers “Presumably Dead”
