Glenn Cecil Truesdell was born on May 19, 1915 in Ackley, Franklin County, Iowa to Stephen Franklin Truesdell and Harriett Agnes (Speed) Truesdell. Stephen and Hattie were both natives of Iowa and married about 1905. They lived for a while in South Dakota where Stephen was principal at a public school before returning to their native Iowa where he alternately farmed, became a public school superintendent and worked as a carpenter. The couple had six children – Wayne, Viola, Frank, Glenn, Evelyn and Joyce.

Glenn Truesdell is not located in the 1940 U.S. census, but on October 16, 1940 he registered for the draft in the city of Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, giving his employer as the U.S. Bureau of Mines at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. There is also no enlistment record for him, but it is presumed that he voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces. A brief article in the Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa dated August 8, 1943 states that he graduated from Officer Training School at Yale University and then was stationed at Drew Field in Tampa, Florida where he was the engineer on a flight crew.

Lieutenant Truesdell may have met his wife while in Boston attending school at Yale. She was the former Jean Elsie Hartling, a naturalized citizen who was born in Canada and grew up in Massachusetts. She was a U.S. Army nurse who received her nurse’s training at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts and served in the U.S. Army from January 1943 until June 1944. The couple had one son, Glenn C. Truesdell Jr., born posthumously ten days after his father’s death.

First Lieutenant Truesdell served with the 882nd Bombardment Squadron, 500th Bombardment Group of the 73rd Air Wing. After training at Walker Army Air Field near Victoria, Kansas they were deployed to the Pacific Theatre and stationed at Isley Field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

On 3 January 1945, he flew as the Flight Engineer aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, nicknamed The Leading Lady. “It was one of 97 aircraft launched in a multi-group formation to bombard the port facilities and urban areas of Nagoya, Japan. Each B-29 was armed with fourteen M-69 incendiary cluster bombs. Nineteen aborted before reaching the target and 57 hit the primary target and 21 other bomb alternates and targets of opportunity. Japanese fighters made 300+ attacks against the formation.”

Lieutenant Truesdell and ten other crew members were killed when their aircraft, which had been rammed by a Japanese fighter plane, crashed and burned southeast of Nagoya near the village of Matsudaira. The one surviving crew member, a tail gunner who was thrown from the plane and was able to open his parachute, was captured and held prisoner by the Japanese but ultimately returned home. Remains of those killed in the crash were recovered and initially interred in a USAF Mausoleum in Yokohama, Japan. On August 13, 1949 their remains were reinterred in a common grave at Zachery Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lieutenant Truesdell was survived by his wife and son who resided in Arlington, Iowa, his parents, a brother, Navy navigator Lt. Wayne Truesdell, three sisters and another brother. He was posthumously awarded an Air Medal which was presented to his wife in April 1946 along with his Purple Heart.

Thank you, Lieutenant Truesdell, for your service and your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story. SBTSProject/Alabama/Tuscaloosa.

If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at dbsmail1315@charter.net.

Sources:

· 1920 United States Federal Census

· 1930 United States Federal Census

· Iowa, U.S. State Census Collection, 1836-1925

· U.S. World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

· U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962

· U.S. Veterans’ Gravesites, ca.1775-2019

· U.S. Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945

· Alabama WW II Military Dead and Wounded, 1944-1946

· Newspapers.com, The Gazette (Cedar Rapids), 8 Aug 1943

· Newspapers.com, The Oelwein Daily Register, 12 Apr 1946

· Newspapers.com, The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), 19 Aug 2001 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3307373/glenn-cecil-truesdell

Glenn C Truesdell