Foss, Robert W.
Army 2nd lieutenant

Robert W. Foss, age 22, from Orange County Fullerton, California .

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, July 5, 1942
Death details: ​On July 5, 1942, a C-53B Skytrooper (serial number 41-20048) took off from Elmendorf Army Air Force Base, Alaska, on a transport mission to Seattle, Washington, carrying four crew members and twelve passengers. Approximately twenty-five miles northeast of Fort Randall, Cold Bay, Alaska, the aircraft crashed into a mountain on Kodiak Island in the Seward Peninsula off of northwest Alaska. All sixteen men on board died in the crash, but only the remains of six were recovered. The other ten occupants remain unaccounted for. Second Lieutenant Robert W. Foss, who joined the U.S. Army Air Forces from California, was a member of Headquarters, 11th Air Force, and was assigned to the 54th Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group. He was a passenger aboard this Skytrooper when it crashed during its transport mission to Seattle. His remains were not recovered following the crash. Today, Second Lieutenant Foss is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency