News of Service Men
Robert J. Christensen was included among members of the first of May graduating class at Harlingen, Texas, Aerial Gunnery School where men to fill fighting slots in bomber crews are trained.
Christensen received a diploma and silver gunner’s wings at the graduation exercises. Completion of the course and another technical course automatically entitles him to a sergeant’s chevrons. Unless re-trained as an instructor, he will immediate join a combat unit. Robert has spent many hours on the ground and in the air firing all types of flexible gunnery weapons and studying and putting into practice every technique of modern aerial warfare during the intensive six weeks period of training at the Texas school.
Robert is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Christensen of Superior. He enlisted before Pearl Harbor and received basic training at Fort Snelling, Minn. He had been stationed at Camp Leonard Wood, Mo., Santa Ana Air Base, Calif., and at Nashville, Tenn., before being sent to the Texas school. Christensens have one other son, Peter, who is in the Navy and is now at sea.
Source: Spirit Lake Beacon, Spirit Lake, Iowa, Thursday, May 20, 1943, Page 6
News of Service Men
Sgt. Robert Christensen left Friday for Salt Lake City, Utah, where he has been transferred.
Source: Spirit Lake Beacon, Spirit Lake, Iowa, Thursday, October 21, 1943, Page 7
S. Sgt. Robert Christensen Reported Missing
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Christensen received a telegram last week, Thursday, that the training plane in which their son, Robert, was a gunner, was missing. The field from which he was training is Windover, Utah. While the family have had telegrams form the government daily since then, there has been no report of the fate of the plane.
Robert was the first boy in Dickinson County to volunteer for the years training in the Selective Service. This was three years ago last fall. He is a gunner in the Air Corps. The other brother, Peter, is in the Navy. There are two sisters, one living in Kansas City, and one in Clinton, Missouri.
Source: The Terril Record, Terril, Iowa, Thursday, February 3, 1944, Page 1
Body of Robert Christensen Found
The body of Staff Sergeant Robert J. Christensen 27, son of Mr. and Mrs. Anderw J. Christensen, who live between here and Superior, was found Friday evening in the mountains northwest of Wendover Field, Utah. Five other bomber crew members were killed in the crash, Jan. 27.
Robert was born in Clay County, but his family moved to Dickinson county when he was 20 months old. He was valedictorian of the 1935 Superior High School graduating class. Entering the service in November, 1940, he was in the medical corps until September, 1942. Surviving are his parents, two sisters, Audrey of Kansas City and Helen of Clinton, Missouri, and a brother, Peter, now on convoy duty in the Atlantic.
Military services will follow arrival of his body.
Source: The Terril Record, Terril, Iowa, Thursday, February 17, 1944, Page 1
NOTE: S/Sgt. Robert J. Christensen was killed in a training crash over Windover, Utah,
January 26, 1944. He was interred at Superior Township Cemetery, Superior, Iowa.
~ Spirit Lake Beacon, Spirit Lake, Iowa, Thursday February 14, 1946, Page 1
~findagrave.com
