Raymond H. Wilkins

Raymond Harrell Wilkins left Portsmouth, Virginia, for the Army Air Corps as an enlisted man in 1936, earned his wings before Pearl Harbor, and was already in the Southwest Pacific when the war opened for the United States. By late 1943 he was a major commanding the 8th Bombardment Squadron of the 3d Bombardment Group — B-25 Mitchells flown low against Japanese shipping and airfields from New Guinea bases.

On November 2, 1943, he led his squadron into Simpson Harbor at Rabaul on a shipping strike. The Medal of Honor citation records that he kept his airplane in the most exposed position, revised the approach when smoke from earlier bombs forced a change, pressed through concentrated antiaircraft fire with a damaged wing, put a thousand-pound bomb into a destroyer, hit a large transport, and then strafed a cruiser that barred the squadron's exit so the rest of the formation could get out. His left wing crumpled under fire. The bomber went into the harbor. Remains were not recovered.

He is on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery. A memorial marker at Olive Branch Cemetery in Portsmouth is not a grave. This register will not invent a recovery the Wall of the Missing does not show. A finding of death closed a personnel file. It did not bring a body home from Rabaul.