After attending the New Creek School and the Keyser High School in West Virginia, Rex Wertman worked for Browning Bottling Company in Keyser. Enlisted in November 1942, he received training in Miami Beach, Florida; in Amarillo, Texas; in Moses Lake, Washington; in Reno, Nevada; in Salt Lake City, Utah and at Camp Kearney, Nebraska. He married Dorothy Chapman and went overseas late in 1943 as a member of the 91st Bomber Group / 322nd Bomber Squadron. He was Ball Turret Gunner on B-17 “Skunkface” # 42-29656 when it was shot down by an enemy fighter over Belgium on the 20 February 1944 mission to Leipzig. Crashed NNW of Mons, Belgium. Missing Air Crew Report – MACR 2460. Reportedly, Sgt. Wertman was shot from the ground in his parachute by a German sniper after bailing from the plane. After landing, he was immediately captured and treated in a hospital in Mons, Belgium before being transferred to another one in Brussels with Lt Beauclair and Sgt Ramsey from his crew. He died in the ambulance or soon after it arrived in Brussels on 28 February 1944. Rex Wertman was initially buried in Belgium, then reburied after the war’s end in the U.S. Military Cemetery at Margraten, Holland. His remains were brought back to the United States in December 1948. Sgt. Wertman was posthumously awarded the Citation of Honor of the U.S. Air Forces, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and American Legion Gold Star Citation.