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People Names and Dates


Full Name	William Paul Noble
AKA Full Name
People ID	693523
Title
First Name	William
AKA First Name
Nickname
Middle Name	Paul
AKA Middle
Patronymic/Matronymic
Priorsurnames
Surname	Noble
AKA Surname
Father's Surname	Noble
Mother's Surname	Cofer
Suffix	Jr
Gender	Male
Full Birth Date If Known	1922-06-08
Birth Year	1922
Birth Month	6
Birth Day	8
Full Death Date If Known	1944-06-21
Death Year	1944
Death Month	6
Death Day	21

Events, Dates and Places

Event	Date	Geo Top Level	Geo 2nd Level	Geo 3rd Level	Geo 4th Level
Birth	1922/06/08	USA	Virginia	Norfolk City	Norfolk
Death	1944/06/21	Denmark	South Denmark	Haderslev	Årø
Interment/Inurnment/Scattering	1945/11	Germany	Schleswig-Holstein	Kiel	Ravensberg
Body recovered, found, or identified	1945/11/08	Denmark	South Denmark	Aabenraa	Barsø
Interment/Inurnment/Scattering	1948	Belgium	Liege	Liège	Neupre (Neupré)

Relationships

No relationships added for this person yet

Relationship	Related To	Relative's People ID	Relative's Birth Year	Relative's Death Year	Other Date (typically Marriage Date)

Military Service

Rank If Known Or Highest Or Final Rank	Branch of Service	Beginning Date if Known	End Date if Known
2nd Lieutenant	US Army Air Force/Air Forces

Military Actions Served During


World War II

Interment, Inurnment or Memorialization Information


Cemetery	Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial
Address	164, route du Condroz
City/Town	Neupre (Neupré)
County/District	Liège
State/Province	Liege
Postal/Zip Code	B-4121
Country/Principality	Belgium





Organization
Property Type
Has Marker	Yes
No Marker
Is Cenotaph
GPS/LatLong Coordinates
End of Interment Record	If there are additional interments or cenotaphs for this person they will appear below

Inscription Information

No inscriptions added for this person yet

Other Information

Biographical or other information about the person

https://mills-sfv.com/Genealogy/GLS/People/Text/693523.txt

The Aviation Safety Network page on Noble's B-24 bomber has a pretty detailed chronology that says that Noble's body was recovered from the ocean over 16 months after the plane was shot down (presumably the relatively cold waters of the Baltic can keep bodies preserved for a very long time). All the other records I have found also show that Noble was KIA on 21 June 1944.

However ...

I did find the information below on the Family Search website, and it leaves me scratching my head.

Here's the link:

William P Noble, United States, World War II Prisoners of War, 1941-1945

Here's a text version of the information:

Event Type Military Service
Name William P Noble
Event Date 21 Jun 1944
Event Place Germany
Move Place Stalag 7B Memmingen Bavaria 48-10
Race White
Military Rank Second Lieutenant or Ensign
Military Service Branch Army
Military Service Place 1
Service Number O&817729
Military Service Ac: Air Corps
Military Status Returned to Military Control, Liberated or Repatriated
Parent Military Unit 0O
Subordinate Military Unit Heavy Bomber

Both of these cannot be correct. Either he was KIA on 21 June 1944 or he became a POW. Two other crew from the plane were taken prisoner and survived the war, Lieutenant Plant and Sergeant DePaul.

For now this will remain a mystery to me. One possibility is that because it took so long for Noble's body to be recovered that it was assumed he was taken prisoner, but the bodies of two other crew were never recovered (Gordon and Snyder) and I don't know that they were ever flagged as POWs. Also, if Noble's status was MIA rather than POW, why would the records show he was transported to a specific POW camp?

Another possibility is that another William Noble was taken prisoner and somehow the two men were mixed up. However, the date and the service number match Lieutenant Noble from the B-24 that went down over the ocean near Denmark, so if this was a mistake someone went to a lot of trouble to put the wrong guy's information into the official records.

For now I am leaving the chronology as it appears on the Aviation Safety Network page, but I must admit, this is very weird. Maybe some newspaper article will surface that will shed some light on why there are two different stories here.


Air Medal
Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster
USAAF B-24H Liberator 42-50329 shot down on 21 June 1944 in the Baltic Sea near Denmark	Co-Pilot
Small notes (field in database 50 characters max)
Family Search ID	GZJW-3LB
Find A Grave 1	56360079
Famous per Find A Grave
Famous per Consensus
Find A Grave 2
Find A Grave 3
BillionGraves Record ID
Other websites
Record Entry Date	2021-05-28 10:30:44
Record Last Edit Date	2021-06-07 20:46:32

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