Richard Lee Pogue was born on October 22, 1916, in Woodlake, California. He was the son of John Lee Pogue and Grace C Pogue. He enlisted there in 1940. [Richard enlisted on the 15th of December 1942, in Las Vegas AAF, Nevada. In 1940 he enlisted with the Hemet Ryan School of Aeronautics].

After training at Ryan Field, he spent a year as an instructor at Kingman, Arizona, before joining the Ferry Command in April 1943.

Richard served in the 311th Ferrying Squadron, 27th Transport Group, as a First Lieutenant and Pilot of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain #43-16394 during World War II. On February 11, 1945, his airplane took off at 0950hrs from A-54 airbase, Le Bourget, France, bound for Army Airbase 519 at Grove in Berkshire. At approximately 1125hrs, an aircraft was reported over RAF Tangmere flying at 300ft to 400ft heading north. Visibility at that time was 100 yards and ceiling zero. At 1200hrs, reports came into RAF Tangmere that an aircraft had crashed into a hill north of the airfield. The investigating officers believed that the aircraft had descended during the flight over the channel due to the weather conditions and poor visibility and that they did not realize that they were now over land. The aircraft hit some trees which caused the wing and cargo door to be torn off, and the aircraft crashed to the ground killing all on board.

1Lt Pogue is now buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, sussexhistoryforum.co.uk