Maurus Charles Owens was born 1 Nov 1921, in St Igantius, Montana, to Joseph Marion and Mary Evangeline (Smith) Owens. H e was the 4th of 6 children - 1 older brother and 2 older sisters, and 2 younger sisters. His younger sister, T3 Elizabeth, and her husband LTJG James Dess, both served with the US Navy in World War II and both survived.

In the 1940 census, he was living with his parents and siblings in Missoula, Montana, and was a bottler at the CoCa-Cola Company. He married Mariloras Kennedy on 8 Apr 1942, in Missoula. They had 2 children -daughter Mikel born in 1943 and Joseph born in 1944.

Maurus enlisted in the Army Air Force on 13 May 1942, in Missoula. I can find no other military records for him until his B24 Liberator bomber was shot down over Normandie, France, on 13 Aug 1944. He was initially buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Neuville-en-Condroz, Arrondissement de Liege, Liege, Belgium and either later returned to family to be buried in Saint Mary Cemetery in Missoula, Montana. This is either a burial location or a memorial headstone.

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.

Maurus C Owens