Robert McNeal was born on December 4, 1914. He served in the Quartermaster Corps as a Private First Class during World War II. On May 23, 1945, he was a passenger on Flight C-46D (4-77507) which was taking 41 American soldiers that were ill, injured, or repatriated prisoners of war to hospitals in the Paris, France area and was then eventually going to take them all back to the United States. This flight occurred after Germany's surrender on May 7, 1945. However this C-46, for unknown reasons, developed a fire in one of it's two engines and crashed near the village of Taillefontaine, near Paris. All men aboard were killed in the crash. PFC McNeal died at the age of 30 and is now buried in the Andersonville National Cemetery, Andersonville National Historic Site, Macon County, Georgia, USA.