When Harold Gay Stalnaker was born on April 10, 1923, in Kanawha, West Virginia, his father, Gay, was 44 and his mother, Amy, was 33. He had nine siblings. He served in the 366th Fighter Squadron, 358th Fighter Group as a First Lieutenant during World War II. A pilot of the P-47 #42-76267 aircraft which took off from Toul, France, for an armed reconnaissance mission to the Nonnweiler marshaling yards, Germany, He was killed when his plane was misidentified and shot down on return flight by another P-47 in a 'blue on blue' incident. His plane went into a vertical dive, crashing nose-first in a field outside of Kehlen, Luxembourg and exploded on the ground. 2LT Stalnaker went missing and his name is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing, Luxembourg American Cemetery, Luxembourg. His body was recovered and is now buried at the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, www.americanairmuseum.com, USAAF Class Book Project ABMC American Cemeteries facebook page