John Samuel Buckles was born in 1920 in Tennessee to James S. Buckles and Yetta Hoffman.
He died non battle.
Awarded the Purple Heart
Lt John Samuel Buckles was the pilot of a B-17F Flying Fortress with serial number 42-5383 and was killed when he crashed at Davenport, Florida. Three other airmen also perished: F/O John J. Devine, Lt. William Weldon Jackson and Lt. Joseph Koch.
The Knoxville Journal, April 5, 1944:
Second Lt. John S. Buckles, of Route 5, Elizabethton, was one of four airmen killed Sunday night when a heavy bomber from Avon Park Field, Florida, crashed during a combat training flight. The crash, according to Col. Clint Johnson, commanding officer, was five miles west of Davenport, Fla., Associated Press reported. Six others in the plane were injured.
- Rank: Second Lieutenant
- Date of birth: 6 June 1920
- Date of death: 2 April 1944
- County: Carter
- Hometown: Elizabethton
- Service Branch: Army/Army Air Forces
- Conflict: World War II
- Awards: Purple Heart
- Burial/Memorial Location: Happy Valley Memorial Park, Elizabethton, TN
- Location In Memorial: Pillar VII, Bottom Panel
- Sponsored by: Amy Dotson Cole (He was my grandfather who passed away when my mother was a baby.)
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