My grandfather Kenneth Neal had an older brother, Keith, and younger twin siblings, Maurice and Marjorie.

Marjorie Neal married Paul Lenocker in Iowa. They moved to California and had a son, Paul, Jr., born in 1923. So Paul was a first cousin of my dad’s (Warren Neal, Kenneth’s oldest son, born 1917). Marjorie died in 1936, when her son was thirteen.

When Dad joined the AAF in 1942, he was sent to Santa Ana, CA. The Paul Lenockers drove over to see him right away, but he couldn’t spend time with them. But when they didn’t have KP, guard duty or be fire wardens, they were allowed off base on weekends. In a June letter home, Warren wrote that he’d caught three rides (hitchhiked) to L.A. to Lenockers’ home. Paul had remarried, so Cousin Paul had a stepmother, Hilda.

Kenneth and Ruby Neal lived in Southern California when their kids were small, hoping to alleviate Ruby’s hay fever/asthma. Warren’s sister Nadine had been born the same year as Paul Lenocker, Jr., with Bill and Betty between, so the cousins would have spent time together then. They eventually returned to Iowa, but still held fond memories of Cousin Paul and his parents.

When Warren visited them in 1942, they drove him to the area they’d once lived, fed him well, and drove him back to the post. He visited them more than once while he was stationed there.

Warren and his brother Bill both became pilots. So did Paul Lenocker, Jr. Dad and his brother didn’t talk about the war when I was growing up. I didn’t know that they had a cousin who became a B-17 pilot and who was shot down and was a POW of the Germans.

I recently found this information on an 8th Air Force Facebook page: “Sgt Robert B. Roth, Radio Operator, with the 388th Bomb Group/561st Bomb Squadron? He was flying on B-17 44-6582. Shot down on 21 January 1945. The pilot was 2nd LT Winfred Paul Lenocker. The plane was hit by flak and crashed near Heimerdingen, Germany.”

I’ve located Robert Roth’s daughter and hope to learn more about their crash and time as POWs. I know there were nine aboard the B-17, all survived, and were POWs.

Here is Paul Lenocker’s findagrave page.

I did find a page with the full names of the crew, so I’ve added their names as tags and hope to learn more in the future.

UPDATE (three hours later): The internet is incredible! A woman on the 8th AF Facebook page (from overseas) has already posted documents about the crew. They were POWs at Dulag Luft West, so more research.