His widow, Glea, was notified by telegram, as reported in The Chariton Herald-Patriot of Aug. 15: "Word was received Tuesday evening that Lieut. John E. Baxter, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Baxter, 627 Auburn Ave., Chariton, was missing in action. The telegram received by his wife, Mrs. Glea E. Baxter, is as follows:
"The Secretary of war desires me to express his deep regret your husband, Second Lieutenant John E. Baxter Jr., has been reported missing in action since the 28th of July in the European area. If further details or other information are received, you will be promptly notified."
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John, son of John E. Baxter Sr. and Cora M. (Terrell) Baxter, born during 1924, was the only son among their three children. His father was a salesman, based in Chariton, for the Wilson Packing Co. of Ottumwa.
John Jr. was a popular young man known by most as "Johnny" and a Chariton Junior College student when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during November of 1942 in Des Moines. He also was employed in the shop of the Chariton Newspapers and worked there until deployed during January of 1943 to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, to begin initial training. A year later, he was commissioned 2nd lieutenant on Feb. 4, 1944, at Blackland Field, Waco, Texas.
Also during February of 1944, John was married to Glea Bennett, of Chariton, in the post chapel in Waco. She returned to Chariton to live with her mother, Lulah Bennett.
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John landed in England on June 30, 1944, assigned as co-pilot to a B-17 Bomber.
That plane crashed into the North Sea less than a month later, on July 28, when it collided midair with another B-17 approximately 15 miles off the English coast on the return flight from a bombing mission targeting Merseburg and ammunition factories in the Ruhr.
John's widow and parents learned more about his death during October of that year, but not through official channels. The Herald-Patriot reported the circumstances in its edition of Oct. 26 under the headline, "Further word on Johnny Baxter."
Information was received in Chariton this week regarding the plane crash that Johnny Baxter was in this summer in which he was reported missing. A member of his crew who was left behind on the fatal trip has returned to the United States and wrote Mrs. Baxter that the plane her husband was in had been returning from a bombing mission over Germany and was about 15 minutes flying time from the English coast. At that time it was crashed into from behind by a plane which immediately exploded in the air. The ship on which Johnny was co-pilot was damaged in the accident and subsequent explosion and plummeted into the channel.
The letter goes on to say that rescue crews were immediately sent out and the area was searched for several hours. One man was picked up but up to the time the writer left England, this lone survivor was still unable to give a coherent account of the accident.
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John's remains never were recovered, of course, and he was posthumously awarded the Air Medal and Purple Heart Medal. His name was engraved on Tablets of the Missing, Cambridge American Military Cemetery, Cambridge, England.
Glea Baxter remarried after the war and lived at Bedford with her second husband and their sons. John's parents eventually moved from Chariton to Ottumwa and are buried in the cemetery there, where a cenotaph in John's memory was placed on the family lot.
But few if any in Lucas County remember Johnny Baxter --- except, now, you.
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