World War II Honoree

Hugo E. "Epp" Nehlsen

Branch of Service

U.S. Army Air Force

Hometown

Davenport, Iowa

Honored By

Thomas Cusack

Relationship

First Cousin

Signed up for Army Air Corps officer training some time in 1942 and was called up and sent to a Texas base for pilot training but ended up as 2nd Lieutenant navigator. He was assigned to a troop carrier command after training in Florida and then went to England by a route that flew from Florida to Brazil, Dakar West Africa and on to England. That was necessitated by the short range of the DC-3’s (C47). The plane crash in England occurred shortly before D-Day when a planeload of officers had been to another base for a D-Day briefing and crashed into their home field when an exuberant pilot was showing off on their return.