John Lloyd Mayo was reportedly born in Yuma, Colorado, the son of Mrs. Lucille Mayo Strickland of Shirley, Arkansas. Nothing of his younger life has been discovered yet except that he was a farmer in Yuma.

He enlisted in the military in September 1943, and after basic training, he attended flexible aerial gunnery school. After graduating, he was assigned to the 561st Bomb Squadron of the 388th Bomb Group operating from Knettishall Air Base in England.

On November 5, 1944, his aircraft and crew were scheduled to participate in a bombing raid on Frankfurt, Germany. During the bomb run, flak hit the #3 engine, causing it to catch fire. Streaming smoke from the engine, the aircraft was observed being put into a shallow dive by the pilot in an effort to stem the fire. The internal situation within the aircraft worsened, and the pilot attempted to crash-land the aircraft approximately 3 kilometers Southeast of Kirchheim-Bolanden, Germany. The aircraft, under control to this point, suddenly became unstable and uncontrollable, and crashed. The aircraft caught fire, and only 3 of the crew were able to escape the burning wreckage.

The bodies of the remaining crewmen were recovered by the Germans and buried in a common grave in the Parish Cemetery in Bolanden. After the war, the bodies were recovered by the Allied Forces, but were deemed individually unidentifiable, and so were buried in a mass grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, airforce.togetherweserved.com