Tag: Evergreen Cemetery

Donald West Moore: A WWII B-24 Liberator Pilot’s Story

Second Lieutenant Donald West Moore, a pilot from Kentucky, served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. He was declared missing after his B-24 Liberator was shot down over the Celebes Islands on September 3, 1944, and was officially pronounced dead in March 1946. His family remained central to his legacy.

Second Lieutenant Donald West Moore was a Kentucky-born pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. A qualified B-24 Liberator pilot, he was reported missing after an aircraft went down over the Celebes Islands on 3 September 1944. He was later declared dead by the United States War Department, with the decision publicly announced in Louisville in March 1946. [1]

Donald West Moore’s wartime career carried him from Shively and Louisville to the long-range bomber operations of the South-West Pacific.

Early Life and Family

Donald West Moore was born on 24 July 1922 in Shively, Jefferson County, Kentucky, the son of Herbert Eugene Karl, also recorded as Charles, Moore and Eusebia, or “Sebie”, West. Shively, now a city in its own right, formed part of the wider Louisville urban area in which Donald grew up. The surviving census material places him in Jefferson County as a young child, living with his family on Sanders Lane in 1930. [1]

By 1940 Donald was seventeen and living with his family on Birch York Lane in Jefferson County. He was recorded as single and as a son in the household. The report also places him in Louisville during this period and identifies him as a graduate of Louisville Male High School. A later newspaper account records that he had been a student at the University of Louisville before entering military service. [1]

Donald was one of several children of Herbert and Sebie Moore. The newspaper notice published after his death named his brothers Robert W. and Clifford W., and his sister Ida Mae. He did not marry and no children are recorded in the family report. His family in Shively remained central to the wartime notices that first reported him missing and later announced that he had been officially declared dead. [1]

Entering Military Service

Donald entered military service in 1942, during the rapid expansion of the United States Army Air Forces. His draft registration and military records describe a young man of approximately 5 feet 3 inches in height and 135 pounds, with brown hair and grey eyes. The draft record also gives his civilian employment as the American Air Filter Company, showing that his route into aviation began from an ordinary civilian working life rather than from an established military career. [1]

He trained as an airman and progressed to pilot qualification. A report in the Courier Journal dated 10 February 1944 announced that Flight Officer Donald W. Moore of Shively had recently graduated from Freeman Field at Seymour, Indiana, alongside fellow Kentucky pilot Second Lieutenant Ephraim A. Berry of Glasgow. Freeman Field was an important USAAF training centre, and Donald’s graduation marked his transition from trainee to operationally employable pilot. [1]

By the time he went overseas in May 1944, Donald held the rank of Second Lieutenant and was trained to fly the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The B-24 was a four-engined heavy bomber capable of carrying a substantial bomb load over long distances. In September 1944 the USAAF had more than 6,000 B-24s in service worldwide, illustrating the aircraft’s central role in American strategic and operational bombing. [1][2][3]

Military Unit and Role at the Time of Death

The supplied report identifies Donald’s parent service as the United States Army Air Forces and his operational role as a B-24 Liberator pilot, but it does not name his numbered bombardment group, squadron or aircraft serial. It is therefore not possible to assign him confidently to a particular USAAF combat group from the available evidence alone. This is an important limitation: the B-24 served in several formations in the South-West Pacific and Far East, and a pilot’s service number by itself does not establish the exact squadron in which he flew. [1]

Donald’s operational setting was nevertheless the South-West Pacific and the Netherlands East Indies, where American heavy bombers attacked Japanese airfields, ports, shipping, fuel installations and other military targets. On and around 3 September 1944, B-24s were operating against Japanese airfields on Celebes, including Langoan. Contemporary operational summaries report a large B-24 strike against Langoan Airfield, alongside other attacks in the Celebes and Moluccas. [4][5]

A heavy-bomber crew was a tightly integrated unit. The pilot was responsible for aircraft handling, navigation in coordination with the navigator, formation flying, take-off and landing, and the safe completion of the mission. In combat, the pilot also had to maintain formation discipline while the aircraft was exposed to anti-aircraft fire and possible fighter interception. The other crew members—co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, flight engineer, radio operator, gunners and other specialists—each had distinct responsibilities, but the aircraft’s survival depended upon their combined performance.

Donald’s exact squadron remains unidentified in the surviving family material, but his role is clear: he was the pilot of a long-range B-24 crew operating against Japanese positions in the Celebes.

Operations over the Celebes

The Celebes, now known as Sulawesi, was strategically important because of its airfields and its position within the Japanese-held Netherlands East Indies. Langoan Airfield, in the northern part of the island, was among the Japanese installations targeted by Allied aircraft in 1944. B-24 missions in this region involved long flights across open water and tropical terrain, often operating from bases separated from the target by hundreds of miles.

These operations placed heavy demands on aircraft and crews. Long-range missions required careful fuel management, accurate navigation, formation flying and co-ordination with fighter escorts where available. Crews also faced tropical weather, mechanical failure, anti-aircraft fire and Japanese fighter opposition. The B-24’s long range made it valuable in the Pacific, but the distances involved also meant that a damaged aircraft could have few safe options for recovery.

The family record states that Donald’s aircraft was shot down over Japanese territory and that he had been missing since 3 September 1944, although one contemporary newspaper report used 5 September as the date from which he was missing. The safest interpretation is that the aircraft was lost during operations in the Celebes area around 3–5 September, with the official date of death ultimately recorded as 3 September. [1]

Circumstances of Death

Donald was reported missing in action after his aircraft went down over the Celebes Islands. The October 1944 notice in the Courier Journal described him as missing after his plane had been shot down over Japanese territory. At that stage, neither the War Department nor his family could establish with certainty whether he had survived the crash, been captured, or died at the time the aircraft was lost. [1]

The uncertainty lasted for more than a year. On 7–8 March 1946, the War Department officially declared Donald dead, and the Louisville newspaper reported that he had died in combat over Langoan, Celebes, on 3 September 1944. He was twenty-two years old. The declaration transformed a prolonged missing-person case into an official death, allowing his family to grieve with a formal conclusion even though the precise circumstances and location of his remains were not known. [1]

The wording used in the family report—“reported missing in action, later declared dead”—captures a common wartime experience for aircrew operating far from home. When an aircraft disappeared over enemy-held territory, investigations could be delayed by military operations, lack of witnesses, inaccessible crash sites and the absence of recoverable records. Donald’s case remained unresolved until the War Department completed its administrative review.

Burial and Commemoration

The family report records Donald’s burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, Plot 196. This may represent a later family memorial or burial arrangement rather than the recovery of remains from the Celebes, as the newspaper report states that he had been missing since the aircraft went down in the Netherlands East Indies. The available material does not provide a separate overseas grave or an identified crash-site burial. [1]

Donald’s name was preserved in the family’s newspaper notices and in online memorial records, including Find a Grave memorial 215530664. His parents’ names, Herbert and Sebie Moore, and the names of his siblings were included in the 1946 death notice, ensuring that his service was remembered within the context of his family rather than only as a military statistic. [1]

Legacy

Donald West Moore’s life followed a path familiar to many young Americans of his generation: local schooling, early employment, higher education and then military service in response to a global war. His graduation from Louisville Male High School and attendance at the University of Louisville suggest a young man with educational opportunities and ambitions before the demands of wartime aviation redirected his future. [1]

His promotion to Second Lieutenant and qualification as a B-24 pilot represented a significant achievement. Heavy-bomber pilots carried responsibility for their aircraft and crew in demanding operational conditions. Donald’s overseas service lasted only a few months before his aircraft was lost, but those months placed him within the large American air campaign against Japanese positions across the South-West Pacific. [1][4]

For his family in Shively and Louisville, the most painful aspect of his loss was the long period of uncertainty. Donald was first remembered as missing, and only later as dead. The 1946 announcement finally acknowledged what his family had feared since September 1944 and brought his name into the permanent record of those who died in combat. [1]

Donald is remembered today as a son, brother, student, pilot and officer. The surviving records do not yet identify his exact bombardment group or the individual B-24 in which he flew, but they clearly establish his place in the wartime history of American heavy-bomber operations in the Celebes. Further research in USAAF missing-aircrew files, MACR records and unit war diaries may eventually provide the aircraft number, crew list and mission details that would complete his military story.

Sources and Further Reading

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Donald-West-Moore.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/a22aa831-3973-482b-b006-6fd21fc0f32d/Individual-Report-for-Donald-West-Moore.pdf
[2] Consolidated B-24 Liberator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_B-24_Liberator
[3] B-24 Liberator units of the United States Army Air Forces – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-24_Liberator_units_of_the_United_States_Army_Air_Forces
[4] September, 1944 – USAAF Combat Operations 1941 – 1945 https://aircrewremembered.com/USAAFCombatOperations/Sep.44.html
[5] Consolidated B-24 Liberator in the Pacific War https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_B-24_Pacific.html
[6] Accidents and incidents involving the Consolidated B-24 Liberator – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Consolidated_B-24_Liberator
[7] B24 https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/type/B24
[8] Consolidated B-24 Liberator: The Loyal “Lumbering Lib” https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/consolidated-b-24-liberator-the-loyal-lumbering-lib/
[9] Consolidated B-24 Liberator – Pacific Wrecks https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-24/index.html
[10] Pacific Theater of Operations PTO B-24 Liberator https://asisbiz.com/il2/B-24/PTO.html
[11] Three Groups Over Borneo: The Day the Pacific B-24 Force … https://aeronauticsmagazine.com/aerojournal/three-groups-over-borneo-the-day-the-pacific-b-24-force-threw-everything-it-had
[12] B-24 Liberator – 307bg.org https://307bg.org/b24-liberator/
[13] 98th Bombardment Group B-24 Liberator https://asisbiz.com/il2/B-24/98BG.html
[14] Consolidated B-24 Liberator https://www.armyaircorps-376bg.com/b-24-liberator.html
[15] B-24 with USAAF https://www.aircraftinformation.info/JB_AIF/usaf_bombers/b24_37.html
[16] [PDF] Personal Papers in the United States Air Force Historical Research … https://www.governmentattic.org/54docs/PPUSAFHRC5thEd1990.pdf