American War Hero · World War II · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the service and the writing, not an invented face.
Edward M. Dobson
October 8, 1921 – unaccounted for since November 18, 1943
Born Bellmore, Nassau County, New York
Loss location: North Sea, return route from Kjeller / Oslo area (loss location)
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces; pilot, 67th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bombardment Group (Heavy); B-24 Liberator 42-7603 (Raggedy Ann / Raggedy Anne Junior), Oslo-area mission, November 18, 1943
Missing in action — DPAA lists 1st Lt. Edward M. Dobson as Unaccounted For (Non-recoverable), profile a0Jt0000000Xe6ZEAS (verified 2026-09-23). Pilot of B-24 Liberator 42-7603 lost November 18, 1943 after a mission against targets near Oslo, Norway; aircraft and full crew never returned; believed downed over the North Sea. Memorialized on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery. Non-recoverable is an analytic category for a North Sea loss, not a recovered grave.
Edward MacDonald Dobson grew up on Long Island and went into the Army Air Forces from New York. By the summer of 1943 he was already a B-24 co-pilot on the Ploesti low-level raid, flying Calaban with the 44th Bombardment Group out of Shipdham. That autumn he was a first lieutenant in the left seat.
On November 18, 1943, he took Liberator 42-7603 — Raggedy Ann — against motor works near Kjeller outside Oslo. The formation bombed and turned for England. Somewhere on the long water haul home, the ship dropped out of sight. Other crews never saw it again. No ditching report closed the file. No remains came ashore with a name that matched his.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000000Xe6ZEAS still reads Unaccounted For, analytical category Non-recoverable. He is on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery. A memorial marker is not a grave from the North Sea. This register keeps the airplane, the date, and the open ledger.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1941-015
- Content hash
- 0ee08a5a b01fccbe 96823d96 3baf6260 dc913319 46830cef 62f8ba5f cef585d4
- Base anchor
- 0x3562f4 c553e3dd 3b678519 e334188e 16fe627f abb742e3 77a5e2e0 ba097147 a8
Base stores the content hash, publication number, memorial id, and timestamp — not the full obituary text. The complete memorial remains on Notice Nearby. This is not a legal affidavit.