Jerry C. Debes World War II papers

Jerry C. Debes (1920-1944) was born in Beaumont, Texas as one of five children of immigrant parents. His father Mike N. Debes (b.c. 1881) immigrated to America from Tripoli, Syria (now a part of Lebanon) in 1892. Mike married Vehiba, also Syrian, about 1907 and began his retail business in Beaumont, Texas. The Debes children attended Beaumont High School from which Jerry Debes graduated in 1938. He then attended the local Lamar College to study accounting. On December 7, 1941, Debes was working as an accountant for the Stedman Wholesale Company. He enlisted in the US Army where he was sent to Camp Crowder, Mo. to be trained for the newly-established Signal Corps for the Second Division of the US Army Air Force (AAF). Preferring to become a pilot, Debes then began training at the Wilson & Bonafils Flying School in Chickasha, Oklahoma but failed to finish the program. He then studied at the bombardier school at the George Air Force base in Victorville, CA. and graduated on July 31, 1943. He did additional training as a bombardier at the Air Force bases in Pueblo, CO and Tuscan, AZ eventually becoming a bombardier instructor. In the spring of 1944, he became certified as an aviation navigator. Lt. Jerry C. Debes was then transferred to the RAF base in Halesworth, England as part of the 846th Squadron of the 489th Bombardment Group of the Eighth Air Force (8AF). Jerry and his crew christened their B-24 Liberator plane as the “Agony Wagon”. Although notorious for catching on fire because of the fuel tank placement, the B-24 Liberator eventually became the most produced American military aircraft in history. The crew of the “Agony Wagon” entered combat on May 30, 1944 at the very end of the Allied Forces’ “softening up” process of Nazi-occupied France prior to the D-Day invasion. The Allied invasion of Normandy began on June 2, 1944. Debes flew six combat missions that focused exclusively on strategic targets such as factories, oil refineries, and airfields. On August 16, 1944, Jerry Debes and crew were on their tenth mission with orders to destroy the Rothensee plant and power stations in Magdeburg, Germany. After dropping their loads, the 846th squadron had turned back towards England when the “Agony Wagon” bombed accidently by another Allied plane. The Debes family received word that Jerry was “missing in action” one week later. Over a year later, the US War Department finally declared Second Lieutenant Jerry C. Debes officially “dead”. He was posthumously awarded the US Army’s Purple Heart and the USAF Air Medal for his service, and a tombstone in his memory was placed in the Lorraine American Cemetery outside St. Avold (Moselle), France in 1947. His family spent the rest of the decade trying unsuccessfully to discover the circumstances of his death. After visiting his brother’s grave in France, Dr. Robert Debes of Houston, Texas reopened the inquiry in 1988.