Scribner Nebraska

Muller, Darwin J.
Army Corporal

Darwin J. Muller, age 20, from Dodge County Scribner, Nebraska .

Parents: Otto L. Muller

Service era: World War II
Schools: Scribner High graduate

Date of death: Tuesday, April 24, 1945
Death details: On April 24, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress (serial number 42-94206) with a crew of eleven departed Guam for a bombing mission against enemy installations in Tachikawa, Japan. Just after it dropped its bombs, this plane caught fire and entered a slow downward turn to the right before crashing and burning on the ground. Six members of the crew were killed in the crash. Their remains were later recovered near the crash site and identified. Five members of the crew bailed out and were taken to a military prison in Tokyo, where they later died during an airstrike. The remains of two of those men were later recovered and identified, but the remains of the other three could not be located. Corporal Darin J. Muller joined the U.S. Army Air Forces from Nebraska and served with the 458th Bombardment Squadron, 330th Bombardment Group (Heavy). He was a crew member aboard the B-29A, and was one of the survivors of the crash who died at the Tokyo Military Prison. Attempts to identify his remains following the war were unsuccessful. Today, Corporal Muller is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Evening World Herald (1946)

Wiegand, Lloyd Paul
Navy Musician 2nd class

Lloyd Paul Wiegand, age 19, from Scribner, Nebraska, Dodge county.

Parents: Paul Ludwig Wiegand

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Sunday, December 7, 1941
Death details: On December 14, 2020, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Musician Second Class Lloyd Paul Wiegand, missing from World War II. Musician Second Class Wiegand joined the U.S. Navy from Nebraska. He was aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when the ship came under attack by Japanese forces. The Oklahoma capsized as a result of the attack, and MUS2 Wiegand was killed in the incident. His remains were recovered from the ship following the attack. They could not be identified at the time, and were buried as unknown remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2015, the DPAA received authorization to exhume and reexamine unknown remains associated with the Oklahoma using advances in forensic technology. MUS2 Wiegand’s remains were disinterred and accessioned into the DPAA laboratory, where they were identified as part of this effort.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Omaha World Herald (2017)

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