Lyle Dalton Wiggins was born on January 26, 1921, in Houlton, Aroostook County, Maine. He was the son of Stephen Ernest Wiggins and Evelyn Frances Kneeland Wiggins. He graduated from Houlton High School and entered the University of Maine with the class of 1942, but left after three years to work at the Saco Lowell Machine Shop. In August 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces, completing basic training at Keesler Field, Mississippi, followed by the College Training Detachment at the University of Alabama, gunnery school at Laredo Army Air Field in Texas, and crew training at Westover Field, Massachusetts. He was promoted to Corporal and sent overseas from Mitchel Field, New York, in October 1944. Assigned as a gunner on a B-24 bomber, he was promoted to Sergeant on January 1, 1945, and flew nineteen combat missions over enemy territory.

On February 20, 1945, 2Lt Orgene V. Colvin and his crew took off from Torretto Airfield in the Foggia Complex, Italy, as part of a mission to bomb the marshalling yards at Bolzano. During the attack, their B-24 was struck by six direct hits of enemy flak in the waist section. The blasts ripped the fuselage apart just behind the bomb bays, tearing the aircraft in two. The ball turret broke away and fell, while the forward section, still carrying its bombs, plunged into a dive, ignited near the ground, and exploded against the side of a mountain. The toll was devastating: four crewmen were killed instantly by the flak. Two others died when their parachutes failed to open, and three more perished later from exposure or starvation after bailing out. Only the pilot survived and was taken as a prisoner of war.

Sgt Wiggins was Killed in Action and is now buried in the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, Florence, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Toscana, Italy.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, 484th.org/index.htm, weremember.abmc.gov