More than 76 years after he died, the body of a Utahn killed in World War II has been identified and will be returned to his hometown for burial.
U.S. Army Air Forces Tech. Sgt. Max W. Lower, 23, of Lewiston, was the radio operator on a B-24 Liberator bomber that was shot down over Romania on Aug. 1, 1943. He was part of Operation Tidal Wave, the war’s largest bombing mission on the Ploesti oil fields and refineries, which supplied the Nazi war effort.
Lower's plane was one of 177 bombers based in Italy and Libya that flew the mission; 53 aircraft and 660 air crewmen were lost.