Lincoln Delmar Bundy was born on February 12, 1918, in Saint George, Washington County, Utah. He was the son of James "Jim" Bundy and Chloe Geneva Van Leuven Bundy. He served in the 486th Fighter Squadron, 352nd Fighter Group, as a Second Lieutenant and Pilot of P-51B Mustang #43-7153 during World War II.

On June 10, 1944, 2Lt Bundy’s aircraft took off from Bodney, Norfolk, on a mission to disrupt German movements after D-Day. While strafing trucks near La Mailleraye, France, his P-51 was hit by ground fire and pursued by a German Bf-109. He went missing in action, and for decades it was assumed he was killed that same day. On June 11, 1945, he was officially declared dead and awarded the Purple Heart. In reality, Bundy parachuted safely, evaded capture with the help of French villagers, and by July 1 had joined an encampment of Special Air Service (SAS) men operating under Operation Bulbasket. On July 3, 1944, German forces attacked and overran the SAS camp, capturing Bundy, SAS soldiers, and French resistance fighters. Four days later, on July 7, following the German destruction of the SAS camp, Bundy and 30 SAS men were captured. Under SS Major Josef Kieffer, they were forced to dig their own graves near St. Sauvant and were executed at dawn. Their remains were buried in a mass grave, discovered later in December 1944. Official U.S. records and his headstone still list his death as June 10, 1944.

His remains are believed to rest among the collective burials at Rom Communal Cemetery in France; as exhumation was never permitted, he is officially recorded as non-recoverable. His name is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery. He also has a cenotaph in the Memory Grove Memorial, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, USA. Postwar trials convicted several German officials for the atrocity, but Bundy’s story remained little known until decades later, when historians reconstructed his final weeks of resistance and sacrifice.

Source of information: aircrewremembered.com