Staff Sergeant Claude L. Russell,
Staff Sergeant Claude L. Russell, 32040404 or 32140404 KIA US Army Air Corps. He was the son of Mrs. Laura Russell of the Horseshoe Lake Road, Batavia, New York, he was born in Elmira, New York, on July 23, 1908. He graduated from a Buffalo high school. He married Private Helen M. Pilon Russell A-230205 on August 16, 1930 in Albion, New York. He was employed as a chef at the Miss Batavia Diner in Batavia. At that time he was a member of the Elks, the Moose and Junior Chamber of Commerce. On October 23, 1941, Claude entered the Armed Forces at this time he was 5 foot 6 and a half inches tall weighed 150 pounds had brown eyes and brown hair. He trained in Puerto Rico and at several air bases in the United States. In August, 1944, he went overseas. On September 12, 1944, Staff Sergeant Claude L. Russell, was 34 years of age, a gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber of the 15th Air Force, was reported missing when the plane failed to return from a mission to a Wasserberg Aircraft factory in Germany. A year and a day afterward, the War Department sent a message to Sergeant Russell’s wife, Private Helen M. Russell A-230205, of the WAC, stationed at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, that her husband was presumed dead, September 13, 1945. Sergeant Russell was survived by his mother, his wife, now Mrs. Helen Wooten, Box 150 Ransomville, New York, and a sister, Mrs. Edith Clark.
1- Genesee County World War Two Gold Star MEMORIAL BOOK
2- New York State, Marriage Index, 1881-1967
World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947
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