Femoyer -- 2nd Lt Robert E Femoyer

 

Robert Femoyer joined the Enlisted Reserve Corps as a private at Roanoke, Va., Nov. 11 1942. He was called to active duty the following February and took basic training at Miami Beach, Fla. He became an aviation cadet in July 1943. He failed pilot training at the Mississippi Institute of Aeronautics at Jackson, Miss., but in 1944, graduated from the Army Air Force Flexible Gunnery School at Fort Myers, Fla., and the AAF Navigation School at Selman Field, La.

He went to the European Theater in September 1944, as a second lieutenant and was assigned to the 447th Bomb Group's 711th Squadron. Six weeks later, as navigator of a bomber on a mission near Merseburg, Germany, he was killed in action Nov. 2, earning the nation's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor.

Lieutenant Femoyer's citation reads, in part: "...Severely wounded when his plane was hit by three enemy antiaircraft shells despite extreme pain and great loss of blood, Lieutenant Femoyer refused an offered injection of morphine. He was determined to keep his mental faculties clear in order that he might direct his seriously damaged airplane out of danger and so save his comrades. Unable to rise from the floor, he asked to be propped up in order to see his charts and instruments. He successfully directed the navigation of his lone bomber for two-and-a-half hours so well that it avoided enemy flak and returned to the field without further damage. Only when the airplane had arrived in the safe area over the English Channel did he feel that he had accomplished his objective, and then, and only then, he permitted an injection of a sedative. He died shortly after being removed from the airplane . . . heroism and self-sacrifice of Lieutenant Femoyer are in keeping with the highest traditions."

See the
full citation at the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website.