The body of World War II airman Max W. Lower arrived back in Utah on Thursday, 77 years after he was deployed overseas.
Lower, a radio operator on a B-24 Liberator bomber, was killed when the plane was shot down Aug. 1, 1943, over Ploiesti, Romania. The Lewiston native was 23.
His remains were flown into Salt Lake City International Airport.
The Air National Honor Guard carried his remains — placed inside a flag-draped coffin — from the plane, as Lower’s family watched.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Lower family waits for the plane carrying the remains of Army Air Forces Tech Sgt. Max. W. Lower, 23, of Lewiston, Utah, killed during World War II to arrive at Salt Lake International Airport, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019. Lower was the radio operator on a B-24 Liberator bomber nicknamed ÒOld BaldyÓ that was shot down Aug. 1, 1943, over Ploiesti, Romania duringÊOperation Tidal Wave. Lower's plane was one of 177 bombers based in Italy and Libya that flew the mission; 53 aircraft and 660 air crewmen were lost.
Lower and his fellow airmen were on the war’s largest bombing mission to destroy oil fields and refineries there that supplied the Nazis’ war effort.
His body was one of more than 200 Americans killed in that raid. In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed bodies buried there and sent them to a lab for analysis.
(Photo courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) Utahn Max W. Lower was killed in World War II. His body was identified on Oct. 9.
On Oct. 16, after comparing DNA from the remains to Lower’s family members, the military confirmed the body was his.
Services are scheduled for Nov. 23 in Lewiston, a Utah town near the Idaho line. Members of the Utah National Guard will be pallbearers.