Memorial

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Maurus C. Owens graduated from Missoula County High School and attended the University of Montana.

He was employed by the Coca-Cola company when joined the Air Corps of the U.S. Army Reserve in Missoula, Montana on 13 May 1942. After pilot and navigation training, he was commissioned as second lieutenant in January 1944 at San Marcos, Texas, and went overseas in April of the same year.

Before leaving for Europe, Lt Owens was home on leave with Easter to visit his parents, and his wife, daughter and soon-to-be-born son.

S/Sgt Albert W. Pittman stated after the war that a burst of flak hit the front part of the airplane when they were 45 seconds from the second Mean Point of Impact. Interphone communications were destroyed. S/Sgt Clark, Schroeder, Melin and himself bailed out successfully and he saw the plane circling furiously and crashing into what appeared to be a river bed and exploding upon impact.

On the ground he was brought together with the bombardier, 1st Lt Fred Riebe and they compared notes. His idea was that Lt Ovens was seriously wounded and in desperation jumped without a parachute. At that moment they supposed that all others in the flight deck perished with the plane, which wasn't.

Also T/Sgt Schroeder gave a statement and he believed there were still three men in the plane when it hit the ground, The pilot Lt Wollstein, the co-pilot Lt Smith and the bombardier Lt Owens. Because of the fact that the remains of Lt Owens and Lt Wollstein couldn't be identified seperately and that their remains are buried together at Ardennes, it is certain his statement must be right.

Except those three men, the rest of the crew survived. Clark, Vejda, Tighe and Schroeder evaded and escaped capture (with help from the French resistance). Melin, Pittman and Riebe were captured by the Germans; all of them survived as prisoners of war and made it back to the USA.

Lt Smith is buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Plymouth, Marshall County, Indiana.