Flew B-17 #42-37516. Dropped leaflets at night over enemy occupied territory. Col Aber's remains were found in May 2002 in the river Stour at Harwick. He was buried on 5/10/02 at Cambridge American Cemetery. The airplane was the Tondelayo. The 406th was a night leaflet squadron. He was hit by anti-aircraft fire from the British positions engaging enemy aircraft in the vicinity.

In Memoriam

'Lt Col. Earle Aber, former commander of the 406th Bomb Squadron was shot down on 4th March 1945 as he and his crew were crossing the channel following a night mission in a B-17 named Tondelayo. He and his Co-pilot continued to fly the badly damaged aircraft so that 9 other crew members could parachute to safety. The Aircraft then burst in to flame and dove in to a sand bank in the River Stour. Parts of the aircraft were recovered many years later. Body parts are buried at Madingley and Arlington National Cemetery'
Remembered by Maj Gen Walter R Longanecker Jr, Annapolis, MD

Service

Events

Event	Location	Date
Born	Racine, Wisconsin	20 June 1919
Killed In Action	River Stour, Harwich, UK	4 March 1945
Buried	Cambridge American Cemetery	5 October 2001
Plot F Row 3 Grave 125 On March 4, 1945 a B17 piloted by Lt. Col. Earle J. Aber, Jr., crashed into the North Sea. While most of the crew bailed out, he and his co-pilot, 2nd Lt. Maurice J. Harper, both lost their life that day. A search after the crash only produced limited remains belonging to Aber. His family chose to have these recovered remains interred at Cambridge American Cemetery. In the late 1990s/early 2000s, further remains were recovered from the crash site. Some of the remains were positively identified as belonging to Aber, some were positively identified as belonging to Harper, and some could not be positively identified. The remains of Aber were added to his gravesite at Cambridge American Cemetery. The remains of Harper were buried in a private cemetery in the United States at the request of his family, and the comingled remains that could not be identified were interred together at Arlington National Cemetery.