Army Air Corps pilot killed in World War Two honored at annual Shelby Memorial Day service

CAMP SHELBY, Miss. (WDAM) – The Mississippi Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby hosted an early Memorial Day ceremony Friday.

The museum’s annual holiday service focused on the service and sacrifice of Second Lieutenant Sam B. Dale Jr., a World War Two Army Air Corps fighter pilot who was killed when his plane was shot down over France on July 4, 1944.

“He left everything to go to a far away land, lost his life, for us, to be free,” said Keltoum Rowland, honorary consul of France for Mississippi.

Rowland attended the museum’s Memorial Day ceremony.

“We will never forget,” Rowland said.

Dale was born in Hattiesburg and grew up in Columbia.

He is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

“They’re still not real clear if he was shot down by German fighters, or by flak, but he was getting shot at and something disabled, for sure, his aircraft,” said Tommy Lofton, Mississippi Armed Forces Museum director.

“He went to bail out, and as we understand it, didn’t successfully make it to the ground.”

During the ceremony, a wreath was placed in Dale’s honor at the museum’s Gold Star Families Memorial.

Dale also is remembered on a family memorial at Woodlawn Cemetery in Columbia.

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