Clair Simonson

Clair worked in the armament section, handling weapons, until he was admitted to the Air Corps Administration School. After graduation, he worked in operations until he returned to the United States in February, 1943.

After a furlough, Clair rejoined his air crew and was sent to Foggia, Italy with the 15th Air Force. He flew 33 missions as a tail gunner on a B-24 Liberator. Once his plane was shot up so badly that he was forced to land in Yugoslavia. It took a week for the British to repair their plane. 

Clair once said that if a man is looking for job security and hopes for a reasonably long life span, he doesn’t sit in the tail gunner’s slot while flying over the Alps to bomb oil wells and railroad centers. Yet, that is exactly what Clair did, hitting places like their biggest target, Munich, and cities in Austria, Yugoslavia, and Poland. He earned a Bronze star for “aerial achievement against the enemy.”

Staff Sergeant Clair Simonson was discharged as a Staff Sergeant on the 16th of July 1945. He came home to help his father Ralph with the farm, with time to play semi-pro baseball in Canada for three seasons. Clair married the former Elizabeth Plummer McMann of Pittsfield. They had four children; James, Robert, Stewart, and Patricia. Ralph retired and he and Clair sold their cattle. Clair landed a position as the supervisor of Merchandising Control of Peerless Robes and Sportswear, a division of the C. F. Hathaway Company. 

Clair died in Clinton, Maine on the 8th of April, 1995, at 73 years of age. He is buried in the Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Blue Star Avenue in Augusta, Maine.