Born Vernon L. Repp on 1 July 1922 to Leo Joseph Repp and Anna M. Repp in Wamego, Pottawatomie County, Kansas.

He enlisted (ASN: 17099633) as a Private in the Army Air Corps on 7 September 1942 at Fort Riley, Kansas and was selected for aviation cadet training.

After Navigator training he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant (ASN: O-698345) in the USAAF and became dual-qualified as a Bombardier. He also completed Flexible Gunnery training, and underwent B-29 aircraft operational combat crew training at Smoky Hill Army Air Field near Salina, Kansas.

In September 1944, he deployed from Mather Field, California (with re-fueling stops at Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands) to the central pacific theatre of operations and was assigned to 20th Air Force, XXI Bomber Command, 73rd Bomb Wing, 499th Bombardment Group (VH), 877th Bomb Squadron stationed at Isley Field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

On 2 April 1945, he flew in the Navigator position aboard a Boeing B-29 Super Fortress (nicknamed Jug Haid II) tail code V-Square-2 (serial #42-24650) of the 877th Bomb Squadron.

It was one of 115 aircraft launched in a multi-group formation to bombard the Nakajima aircraft plant near Tokyo, Japan. After a flight of approximately six hours and some 1,200 nautical miles, his aircraft reached their check-point above Mount Fuji on the main island of Honshu, and began their bomb-run north-east towards Tokyo. His aircraft was hit with flak from anti-aircraft artillery while over the target area, and crashed in Ituka, near Kawasaki City in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan.

He was initially listed as MIA, and declared Killed-In-Action after the war ended.

Vernon L Repp