James J Brodie was born on November 14, 1917 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois to Irish immigrants Michael and Mary Golden Brodie. He was the youngest and had one brother Francis J. Brodie and two sisters May C. Brodie and Veronica A. Brodie. He was married to Mary E. Clarke on January 10, 1944 and they had one son. Mary did remarry and died in 2005, no further information could be found on their son.

Brodie attended college for four years. He worked either as a cashier, stock record clerk or bookkeeper, when he enlisted in Chicago, Illinois on 11 July, 1944 in Chicago.

He had enlisted in the Army Air Forces and served during World War II. He had the rank of First Lieutenant. Service number was O-1012186. Served with 384th Bomber Group, Heavy, 545th Bomber Squadron as a Pilot. He had 21 career missions.

Brodie lost his life on September 28, 1944. He flew with the 384th Bomb Group and was on the crew of the B-17 #42-31222 "Lazy Daisy" during a mission to Magdeburg, Germany on 28 September 1944. After bombs away at the target they collided with another B-17 aircraft #43-37822 in the formation and crashed near Ost Ingersleber, Germany, killing all but three of the crew. 1Lt Brodie and S/Sergeant Robert Crumpton are the only ones buried at Margraten Military Cemetery.

James J Brodie is buried at Plot J Row 13 Grave 4, Netherlands American Cemetery, Margraten, Netherlands. This is an American Battle Monuments Commission location.

COMMENDATIONS

Air Medal

Purple Heart

Sources:

https://www.findagrave.com/

https://www.honorstates.org/index.php

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project https://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.