A World War II pilot was given a hero’s burial on Thursday, April 20, at Loma Vista Memorial Park.
In 1943, 2nd Lt. John F. Minogue was shot down over Romania. But for nearly 80 years, he was among the fallen troops who could not be identified at the time.
With modern advancement, the government has recently been able to put names to many of those who were unknown, and Minogue received his long-due tribute and was laid to rest Thursday near his mother in the Fullerton cemetery. Loma Vista is well known for its annual Memorial Day tribute, for which community members blanket the grounds with thousands of American flags honoring veterans.
Minogue’s graveside service included full military honors provided by the Army and the Fullerton American Legion Post 142, and American Veterans Memorial Association also participated in the ceremony.
Minogue, born in 1919, grew up in north Orange County, playing varsity football for Anaheim High and attending Fullerton College, according to his obituary.
He enlisted in 1942, earning his Army wings of gold by the end of that year. He was sent to Europe, and in 1943 was part of a long-range mission, dubbed Tidal Wave, to attack Axis oil fields in Romania. He was the co-pilot of a B-24D Liberator bomber, which was hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, officials said. More than 500 airmen died in that mission, and 54 planes were lost.
Minogue was awarded, posthumously, the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role.
Following World War II, his remains were among several initially buried in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania, but later were moved to the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming the remains of those believed to have died in Tidal Wave in an effort to identify them, and last August Minogue was announced as successfully named.
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