Max E. Dailey
2nd Lt. Max E. Dailey served as navigator aboard B-24D 42-40617 on the low-level Ploesti raid of 1 August 1943. He was reported as a battle casualty when the aircraft was lost over the target.
The aircraft crashed into a building in the center of Ploesti and exploded. Eyewitnesses reported no survivors. His father, Verla Willis Dailey, was listed as next of kin at 616 Hudson Court, Union Rapids, Iowa.
Identification and Burial
His remains were not identified following the war. Remains that could not be identified were buried as Unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania. The American Graves Registration Command later disinterred all American remains from Bolovan Cemetery for identification; more than 80 unknowns from that cemetery could not be identified and were permanently interred at Ardennes American Cemetery and Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, both in Belgium.
In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) began exhuming unknowns believed to be associated with unaccounted-for airmen from Operation Tidal Wave. Scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence, and scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and autosomal DNA (auSTR) analysis, to identify Dailey's remains. He was accounted for on June 22, 2023.
Dailey's name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Impruneta, Italy; a rosette has been placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. He is to be buried in Charles City, Iowa, on a date to be determined.
Sortie Log
01 AUG 1943
The sorties below are those we have been able to document for this airman, drawn from flight logs, mission records, and archival sources. It is not necessarily a complete account of every mission flown; gaps may reflect missing documentation, transferred assignments, or records lost to time.