2nd Lt. Walter Willard Ingalls
Born: 15 January 1922 – Iowa
Mother: Willard Ingalls & Alice Bell-Ingalls
Siblings: 1 sister
Home:
– 816 North Third Avenue – Maywood, Illinois
Education:
– Westchester Grade School – Westchester, Illinois
– Proviso Township High School
– Class of 1938
– Iowa State College
– Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Engineering – 1942
Inducted:
– 1 January 1943 – Iowa
– U.S. Army Air Corps
Serial Number: O&482969
Training:
– Salinas Army Airfield, California
– Lowry Army Airfield, Colorado
– Pratt Army Airfield, Kansas
– sent overseas
Stationed:
– Chakulia Airfield, India
– arrived at the airfield – 2 April 1944
Unit: 25th Bomb Squadron, 40th Bomb Group (Very Heavy), 58th Bomb Wing
Plane:
– B-29-40-BW – Identification Number: 42-24589
– Name: “Calamity Jane”
– Flight Engineer
– 12 man crew
Engagements:
– Bombing missions
– Bangkok, Thailand
– 5 June 1944 – first bombing mission
– Manchuria
– Japan
– Singapore
– took off from Chakulia Airfield – one of 67 B-29s on the mission
– the mission was to bomb the Admiralty Floating Drydock
– hit by enemy fire from anti-aircraft gun or fighter
– #3 engine caught fire – plane went down on fire
Missing in Action:
– 1 February 1945
– Officially Declared Dead – 1 February 1945 – the same day as the mission
Memorial:
– Tablets of the Missing
– American Military Cemetery, Manila, Philippine Islands
Medals:
– Purple Heart
– Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster
