World War II Honoree

Gale Winston "Bucky" Cleven

Branch of Service

U.S. Army Air Force

Hometown

Lemmon, South Dakota

Honored By

Pearl Thomas

In March of 1940 and at the age of 21, he signed up as a flying cadet in the US Army Air Corps. He was a major in the "Bloody Hundredth" Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, and in early 1943 was given command of it. The Group was stationed at Thorpe Abbotts, a RAF station in Norfolk, England and began conducting bombing raids over occupied Europe in B-17s Flying Fortresses. On one of the mission's, his plane was hit and he commandeered it to land in North Africa and received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroics. On an October 8th mission, the crew was hit over Berman, Germany and had to bail out. He became a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III. He escaped from German guards and made it to friendly lines.