CHICAGO — First Lt. Edward T. McGuire, a graduate of the Mount Carmel Excessive College class of 1939, died Aug. 1, 1943, on the age of twenty-two when his B-24 Liberator bomber went down close to Ploiesti, Romania, throughout Operation Tidal Wave in World Struggle II. Whereas his demise was presumed when he didn’t make it again to the Allied base following the operation, his stays have been recovered in 2017, which started a multiyear identification course of.
On Saturday, 80 years after his demise, McGuire and his household have been handled to an enormous army funeral in Evergreen Park. Representatives from the U.S. Division of Protection, police and hearth departments, a whole lot of neighborhood members and dozens of veterans got here to pay their respects.
“What the Division of Protection has placed on here’s a testomony to how nice our nation is,” stated McGuire’s great-nephew Mike McAuliffe of St. Louis, who additionally attended Mount Carmel. “It has lastly put closure to our household.”
Operation Tidal Wave was a flyover mission that sought to make use of U.S. and British bombers, together with the one piloted by McGuire, to take out German oil refineries in Romania. However a number of errors have been made within the planning, in line with historian Roger Miller, who documented the assault for the Air Power Historic Help Division.
Essentially the most obvious error was the order for the bombers to fly low over the targets — the antithesis of bombing coverage, which prefers to maintain bombers excessive and out of attain from the enemy’s defenses, in line with the historic division and Miller.
“The U.S. Army Air Forces by no means once more tried a low stage mission towards German air defenses,” Miller writes.
The Allied casualties from the battle stand at 310 airmen killed, 108 captured and 78 interned in Turkey, he stated.
McGuire, born April 11, 1921, was posthumously awarded the Purple Coronary heart. He’s one in all 58 Mount Carmel alumni who died whereas serving within the Second World Struggle, in line with a plaque on the faculty.
“We are able to’t afford to ever overlook what all of the Males of Carmel did for us, the residing, and for his or her nation so way back,” wrote Terence Stadler, a Mount Carmel alumnus who has collected data on alumni who served. In 2020, he wrote a e-book concerning the alumni who served within the Vietnam Struggle.
McGuire was carried Saturday in a black Cadillac hearse in a funeral procession that included service members, veterans, a shotgun salute, a police escort and a whole lot of firefighters and neighborhood members lining the trail.
“As I checked out these individuals lining the streets, waving these flags … I believed, ‘I guess quite a lot of their grandparents served in World Struggle II,’” stated MaryLynn McGuire Clarke of Florida, one in all Lt. McGuire’s nieces. “I feel that it introduced again the impact (of) that Best Era.”
Scientists from the Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used dental, anthropological evaluation, circumstantial proof, DNA and chromosome evaluation to verify McGuire’s stays.
The memorial mass was held at Most Holy Redeemer Church in Evergreen Park with burial at Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum close to Chicago Ridge.
“I felt obligated to be right here as a result of my dad was really a bombardier in World Struggle II, however he made it again,” stated Evergreen Ridge resident Paul Serritella, 77. “The least I might do is come right here and pay my respects.”
Neighborhood members attending have been of all ages, together with a number of dozen neighborhood youngsters.
”He was solely 22,” stated 13-year-old Mickey McManus, who was advised concerning the funeral by one in all his lecturers, a great-nephew of McGuire.
Maureen McGuire Farnell of Darien and McGuire Clarke remarked about their uncle’s bravery. He volunteered not just for the struggle but additionally for the final mission he flew, McGuire Clarke stated.
“My uncle was a hero amongst heroes,” she stated.
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