WWII Spokane veteran honored 70 years later

by Staff Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton
92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

3/24/2014 - FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- A radio operator assigned to the 9th Army Air Corps and Spokane, Wash., native was honored 70 years after his death during a funeral and memorial service at Fairmount Memorial Park March 22 in Spokane.

Cpl. Lester Zornes was flying to England to prepare 82nd Airborne paratroopers for dropping behind enemy lines at Normandy on D-Day. Due to weather instability over the North Atlantic, the aircraft and crew diverted to the alternate route over the South Atlantic.

Several hours after leaving Roberts Field, Liberia, the starboard engine on their C-47 Skytrain gave out. The pilot tried making an emergency landing at Yundum Airfield in British-held Bathurst, Gambia, but the pilot came in too fast and at too sharp an angle. He tried pulling up at the end of the runway, but by then it was too late as the aircraft crashed immediately bursting into flames.

Zornes' career in Foreign Service lasted just 11 days at the age of 19. The memorial service was held on March 22 in remembrance of that frightful crash 70 years earlier on that same day in 1944.

There was never a memorial service in Spokane, nor an obituary or any permanent marker to remember him by. Zorne's surviving family members, including a sister, brother and cousins, have lamented that they never had a place to 'go to mourn,' and never witnessed any ceremony to honor his life, service and sacrifice.

The Fairchild Honor Guard and members of a local U.S. Army unit provided a seven-man firing party, a flag team with rifle guards and three-man flag fold team. With family, friends, community members and brothers and sisters in arms, Zorne received the honor he so deserved affording his family rest and comfort and ultimately, closure.