Edwin Smolen

Columbus, NE

1938, 789, Este, F-3,

Second Lieutenant Edwin J. Smolen was born in Columbus, Nebraska, on January 30, 1919, and was killed in a plane crash in Scotland on June 24, 1944.

He was the son of Thomas Smolen and Mrs. Josephine Pier Smolen, formerly of Platte County. Second Lieutenant Edwin J. Smolen was one of a family of twelve children. He had five brothers and six sisters. One brother, Lambert J. Smolen, a paratrooper in the marines, was killed in action December 9, 1943, at Bougainville, British Solomon Islands.

As a boy, Edwin J. Smolen resided in Monroe and Columbus, where he attended school. He spent two years in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and then enrolled at the aircraft school in San Francisco, California. Upon the completion of his course in San Francisco, he was employed for a time in Los Angeles, California, as a mechanic before enlisting in the Air Corps on October 28, He received his training at Biloxi, Mississippi; San Antonio, Texas; Vernon, Texas; and Frederick Field in Oklahoma, where he received his wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant on July 29, 1943.

He married Miss Doris Thompson of Vernon, Texas, at Del Rio, Texas, on August 3, 1943.

He was stationed at Del Rio, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana, until May 1, 1944, when he went overseas as a pilot on a B-26.

Second Lieutenant Edwin J. Smolen was killed in a plane crash in Scotland on June 24, 1944. He was buried overseas.

Memorial services were held at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Columbus, Nebraska, July 13, 1944, with Reverend Stanley Jaworski, O.F.M., as celebrant of the Requiem Mass.

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