Captain Mont Fermore Stephensen was born on October 8, 1917 in Levan, Juab, Utah. His parents, Stephen Fermore Stephensen and Hazel Giles, were born in Levan and Fillmore, Millard, Utah, respectively. His grandparents were from Millard County, Utah, and Nordjylland, Denmark. He had five brothers and four sisters, all younger. His father worked as a schoolteacher.

Mont graduated from Jordan High School and the University of Utah, and lived in Riverton, Utah as a young man. He was employed as an accountant, and was not married.

On January 6, 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet in Salt Lake City. He completed basic flight training at Gardner Field in California, then attended advanced flight training school. He earned his wings at Williams Field in Arizona in July 1942, and served as an instructor at Barksdale Field in Louisiana and Hunter Field in Georgia.

Assigned overseas in March 1944 with the 597th Bombardment Squadron, 397th Bombardment Group, he became a B-26G Marauder bomber pilot. Rising to the rank of captain, he eventually became squadron commander and was awarded, over the course of his service, the Air Medal with three silver and two bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Distinguished Flying Cross—short of the Medal of Honor, the highest award given to members of the Army Air Corps. He flew around seventy missions over Germany, and was shot down three times, but escaped safely on each occasion.

On December 23, 1944, Capt. Stephensen was piloting the B-26G “Draggin’ Lady III” (no. 43-34434) over Seffern, Germany, when the flight was attacked by German fighter aircraft. Capt. Stephensen’s plane was hit and went down. None of the crew members were immediately recovered following the crash, and the entire crew was reported missing. On July 7, 1945, the War Department confirmed that Capt. Stephensen and the rest of the crew had been killed in the crash. Capt. Stephensen was subsequently awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.

His grave is located at Riverton City Cemetery in Riverton, Utah. He was survived by his parents, brothers, and sisters.

Thank you, Capt. Stephensen, for your courage and sacrifice.

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.