Darrell R. Lindsey

Darrell Robins Lindsey left Jefferson, Iowa, for the Army Air Forces and a B-26 Marauder cockpit. By the summer of 1944 he was a captain in the 585th Bombardment Squadron, 394th Bombardment Group, flying medium-bomber missions from England against bridges and rail lines that fed the German defense of northern France.

On August 9, 1944, he led a formation against the railroad bridge at L'Isle-Adam. Flak hit his aircraft; the right engine burned and the wing threatened to fail. The Medal of Honor citation states that he held the airplane steady while the crew bailed out, refused to leave the controls while another man was still aboard, and went down with the ship when it exploded. Crew who got out lived. Lindsey did not come back. Missing Air Crew Report 7847 and the unit record document the loss. Remains have not been recovered.

He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. This is a documented aircrew loss over France — not a known ship sinking relabeled as missing. An administrative finding of death closed a personnel file. It did not produce a grave. This register lists him because the Wall of the Missing and the MACR still say a Marauder pilot is not home.