Eugene P. Shauvin, age 25, from Spokane, Washington, Spokane county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Sunday, September 17, 1944
Death details: On March 2, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Second Lieutenant Eugene Pershing Shauvin, missing from World War II. Second Lieutenant Pershing Shauvin entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Washington and served with the 95th Troop Carrier Squadron, 440th Troop Carrier Group. On September 17, 1944, he piloted a C-47 Skytrain (Serial Number 42-100981) with a crew of five and ten pathfinder paratroopers that took off from Chalgrove, England, as part of Operation MARKET GARDEN. The pathfinders were assigned to drop behind enemy lines in the Netherlands to locate drop zones for the main body of paratroopers. The C-47 was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Belgium, causing it to crash. Six members of the aircraft’s crew bailed out before it went down, but the remaining nine men, including 2LT Pershing, were killed in the crash. 2LT Shauvin’s remains were not identified or recovered immediately following the incident. In 2021, a set of unidentified remains that had been recovered from a crash site associated with 2LT Shauvin’s aircraft were accessioned into the DPAA laboratory for identification. This set of remains were eventually identified as those of 2LT Shauvin.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com