After graduation from Buffalo High School in Kansas, Dean Sommers attended Chanute Junior College. Living in 1940 in Colfax, Wilson County, Kansas, he enlisted in June 1942 in Missouri and trained as an aerial gunner. Sent overseas, he was assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group/407th Bomb Squadron in England as a Ball Turret Gunner. His first combat mission was to the Nordhafen rubber plant in Hannover, Germany, on 26 July 1943. He flew on many of the large operations into Germany and was shot down on 16 November 1943 on his 18th combat mission in B-17 #42-29996 'Flagship' to Knaben, Norway. He bailed out over Kvas, Norway and was helped by Norwegian patriots to evade capture. He was arrested by German troops on 23 November 1943. Taken to Oslo, then transported to Frankfurt, Germany, he travelled from there in box cars with other captured enlisted airmen, ending up in Stalag XVII-B, near Krems, Austria. On 8 April 1945, he and other POWs were force-marched from Stalag XVII-B, arriving to a wooded area near Braunau, Austria on 25 April. Dean Sommers and the others were liberated by the 13th Armored Division, Third Army on 3 May 1945. Dean returned to the US on 11 June 1945.