Sioux City Man Commended for Action on Luzon
Fifth Air Force, Philippine Islands—Pvt. Lorren Boetzer, of 514 ½ Main Street, Sioux City, was a member of the first wave of Brig. Gen. J.V. Crabb’s Fifth bomber command to arrive in the Philippines two days following the initial invasion assault. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Boetzer.
Dug in for two weeks on the infantry’s beachhead near Tacloban, capital of Leyte Island, the bomber command advance party was under constant aerial assault and sporadic attacks by scattered remnants of Nip ground forces. Their initial assignment was to repair and enlarge Tacloban air strip.
Despite enemy strafing and dive bombing raids, the last 100 years of runway was completed even as P-38s arrived and circled overhead, waiting to land. Liberators and B-25s followed the fighters in and the return of Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney’s Far East air forces to the Philippines was under way.
For their part in the invasion, Pvt. Boetzer and others of the bomber command advance Echelon have received an official commendation by Gen. Crabb, in which they are cited for having been “conspicuous by their revotion to duty and cooperation in the highest degree while under enemy fire.”
Source: The Sioux City Journal, January 21, 1945
