Lieutenant Richard E. Miller

Richard Ewing Miller was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on 2 March 1916. He graduated from Central High School in 1933. The yearbook from Indiana University at Bloomington states he attended there in 1937-39, where he was a member of the Pershing Rifles in ROTC. (Reserve Officers' Training Corps)

Lieutenant Richard E. Miller died of wounds in North Africa (Gulf of Tunis). His plane was shot down ;

Returning to the U.S, after the Doolittle raid, Miller was assigned to the 440th Bomb Squadron of the 319th Bomb Wing that was equipped with B-26 Martin Marauder aircraft. The unit deployed to Horsham St. Faith, England in October 1942, but was soon transferred to Algeria. The 440th Bomb Squadron was tasked with bombing missions over North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.

It was on one of these missions to bomb Ceprano road/railway bridges that Captain Miller's aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed in flames.

Captain Miller's body was recovered after the invasion of Italy and was buried on 4 March 1949 in Section A, Lot 111 of Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

+++++ I thank The Journal Gazette and reporter Frank Gray for the use of this article, also thanks to Tom Pellegrene . Thanks for your help!

The Journal Gazette granted me on 17 April 2023 by email the right to use the original, the 2009 one or both articles on my website - www.doolittle-raid.net - in exchange for credit: Frank Gray, The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. +++++

 Thanks again for your interest. +++++

 Tom Pellegrene +++++

 FORT WAYNE – THE JOURNAL GAZETTE +++++

 Sunday, November 8, 2009 +++++

 FRANK GRAY Column: Memorial star's owner remains WWII mystery +++++

Section: Metro +++++
Edition: Final +++++
Page: 1C +++++
Source: Frank Gray +++++
Memo: Frank Gray has held positions as reporter and editor at The Journal Gazette since 1982 and has been writing a column on local topics since 1998. His column is published Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached by phone at 461-8376, by fax at 461-8893, or e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. +++++

 +++++ +++++ +++++ The mystery of a large copper star with the name of a Fort Wayne war hero has been solved.

Well, half solved, anyway.
We first wrote about the star in March 2008 when Tina Heth contacted us. Heth, who was 16 at the time, was helping her grandfather make repairs on an old family home in a little town in the far north of North Dakota when she found a large copper star in the rubble underneath the porch.
Engraved on the star were the words, "Richard E. Miller, Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps, Member of the famed Doolittle raid on Tokyo, April 18, 1942."
After some research on the Tokyo raid, Heth discovered that Miller was from Fort Wayne. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in that raid and became an instant celebrity, particularly in Fort Wayne, where parades were held for him when he briefly returned home a few months later. Miller, who wasn't married and had no children, was killed in North Africa in January 1943.
Heth wanted to return the star to a family member of Miller, but his parents are long since dead, as is his sister, and the whereabouts of an older brother is unknown. He might have died by now, too. The only person who has come forward is a cousin in New York City.
The biggest mystery was where the star came from. Did it come off a memorial somewhere? If so, where? Was it part of a gravestone? That was unlikely. Miller's gravestone is in Lindenwood Cemetery and is too small to even hold the star. Was it from an Indiana air base where a building is named after Miller? That didn't seem likely.
Then came a call from Los Angeles.
It seems that Miller, who graduated from Central High School in 1933, had worked for two years and then attended Indiana University for two years before joining the Army Air Corps in 1937. He left the Air Corps in 1939 and went to California, where he got a job at Farmers Insurance Group in Los Angeles.
When the United States entered World War II, Miller rejoined the Air Corps where he was a captain and bombardier. He was eventually chosen as a bombardier on one of the 16 planes that took part in the bombing raid on Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Farmers Insurance Group was a big supporter of the military during the war. It had a flag with a star for every employee in the military, turned its courtyard into a victory garden and held regular blood drives.
Then in 1959, 14 years after the war ended, Jimmy Doolittle came to the company headquarters and presented the company with a plaque with the names of the five Farmers Insurance Group employees who had been killed in action during World War II. A large copper star bore the name and rank of each of the men.
A duplicate of each star was sent to the family of each of the men.
That plaque still hangs prominently in a formal receiving lobby on the top floor of the insurance company's building in Los Angeles.
So half the mystery is solved, but it's still unknown who the duplicate star for Miller was sent to, and even more confusing is how the star ended up in rubble under the steps of a building in Antler, N.D., a little town of 47 next to the Canadian border. +++++ +++++ +++++

ID: 6325494 +++++
Tag: 200911070291 +++++