Robert W. Combs was born on November 23, 1921. He was a Navigator on B-17 42-39868 aircraft during World War II. He was declared missing on November 11, 1943 and is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing, Netherlands American Cemetery, Margraten, Netherlands. He also has a cenotaph located in McDonough Memorial Cemetery, McDonough, Henry County, Georgia.

On November 11, 1943, at approximately 3 o´clock P.M., three of the crew members were taken prisoner of war and the other seven reported Killed in Action after a plane explosion. A statement from J.B. O'Harra that there was a very heavy front over the English Channel when they took off for Muenster in the morning. They reached their target and were on their way back. As they were approaching the front, near the coast of Holland, three Focke-Wolf 190´s came out at about four to six hundred yards distance and engaged them, knocking out their No. 3 engine and also starting fire on the left wing. The ship was strafed its full length and the interphones shot out. The pilot, is believed to have been hit at that time, because the ship went into a wide bank and then into a spin, after which it exploded. The bombardier and two other men landed in the water and were picked up by Dutch fisherman who were later overtaken by a German patrol boat.

According to a statement from T/Sgt Edward Goldstein, one of the surviving crew members, Lt Combs didn't had a parachute on when the plane exploded. A German intelligence officer told him that they found his body. Probably this officer referred to the recovery of the bodies of the other killed crew members, because Lt Combs was never found and remains missing in action to this day.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, https://www.fieldsofhonor-database.com