First Lieutenant Noel Emerson Shoup
USAAF
USAAF WWII | Pilot B-17 Flying Fortress
359th Bombardment Squadron | 303rd Bombardment Group
KIA February 28, 1944 | Identified by DPPA April 6, 2023
Sponsor : Revolver
Noel Emerson Shoup
U.S. Veteran
Noel Emerson Shoup was born Sept. 11, 1918, in Erath County, Texas. He died Feb. 28, 1944, near Le Translay,Somme, Picardie, France.
His remains were identified in April 2023. He will be interred in the Upper Greens Creek Cemetery Sept. 11, 2023.
He was the second son of Arthur Warren Shoup and Lela Virgie Miller, grandson of Joseph Warren Shoup and TheodociaLouvenia Roberson (paternal grandparents) and Henry Miller and Amanda Jane Castleberry (maternal grandparents). Noel had two brothers, Joseph Wayland Shoup (stillborn) and Calvin Arthur Shoup (1927-1996).
He is survived by two nieces, Sandra M. Hammons and Brenda C. Baumert, two great nephews, a gr-gr niece and a gr-gr-nephew, one living first cousin, along with numerous cousins.
Noel attended school in Erath County, graduating from Dublin High School in 1936.
While in high school he played basketball among other sports and was a member of FFA.
He attended Texas Tech College (now Texas Tech University) in Lubbock, Texas.
In March of 1942, Noel enlisted in the army. It was the last semester of his senior year at Tech.
Noel was extremely talented, intelligent, loyal, and obedient. Those traits have shown through no matter who is telling the story. Even his brother, Calvin, said Noel was a good brother who was always kind to him and that Noel was never mean to his younger sibling, something unusual for brothers.
On Feb. 28, 1944, Noel and his crew flew their B-17 on mission 114, his 18 th mission, to Bois Coqueral, France.
This was a “Crossbow” target (German Missile Launching) in the Pas de Calais area. On the second bomb run, German anti-aircraft fire flak took off the right wing and the B-17 went down in a slow spiral. The nose broke off when the plane exploded. Three crew members were ejected from the plane—2Lt. Byron F. Clark, 1Lt. Charles J. McClain and S/Sgt Nick Avestos. The seven other crewmen died in the crash of the B-17 that crashed near Translay, 13 km SW of Abbeville, France (MACR #7863)
One day in February, Brenda’s phone rang. It was Charles McClain. Yes, even though almost 60 years had passed, he recalled Noel vividly. “Please tell me how the plane went down and all that happened,” Brenda asked. Charles McClain began, “It was a cold overcast day in February; we were on our way toward Frankfurt, but we were having to use our instruments to navigate. We could see nothing, and we had been missing our targets all day. The plane was hit by antiaircraft fire and the wing blew off. It began a slow spiral downward, and then it exploded.” Charles continued, “Three of us were blown free of the wreckage. Two were captured, but I escaped into the Great Pyrenees Mountains not far from Abbeville, France. I wandered around in those mountains for 3 ½ months until June 17, when I finally found the border for Spain and crossed into Allied territory.” “Did Noel have anyone special that he dated while he was stationed in England?” Brenda queried. Again, Charles stated, “No, Noel never went into town on weekend passes. He didn’t smoke, and he didn’t run around chasing girls like most of the other guys did. In his free time, Noel just stayed in the barracks, wrote letters home and studied how to be a better pilot.”
In 2018 when Sandra and Brenda were asked to submit their DNA to the Army. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) had performed an archaeological dig of the site where Noel’s plane had gone down. Among the items they recovered included the cockpit wreckage of a B-17, a few small bone fragments, and a high school class ring, which said “Dublin High School Class of 1936” with the initials “N.E.S.” inscribed on the inside. After 74 years, the wreckage of Noel’s plane had been located. The remains of Noel and his co-pilot James Litherland had been buried in a box in the American Cemetery at Ardennes Belgium. The Army requested exhumation of the box of remains for shipment to the DNA laboratory in Nebraska.
In the spring of this year, identification of those remains were made and we received a long-awaited phone call that Noel’s remains would be returned to his closest kin, that being his nieces, Sandra and Brenda. The remains of the co-pilot, James Litherland, were also returned to his closest kin, that being his only daughter.
79 years, 6 months and 3 days later, Noel will finally be put to rest.
There will be a viewing for American Hero Noel Shoup Sunday, Sept. 10 at Harrell Funeral Home from 6-8 p.m. A service open to the public will be held at 1 p.m. at Greens Creek Baptist Church on Sept. 11, 2023. Graveside services will be held at approximately 2 p.m. at Upper Greens Creek Cemetery following the service.
A processional for Noel’s remains from DFW airport to Harrell’s Funeral Home will be Friday, Sept. 8 and all community members are urged to line roadways to pay their respects.
Obituary | Noel Emerson Shoup | Harrell Funeral Home (harrellfuneralhomedublin.com)
1Lt Noel Shoup
1st Lt NOEL E SHOUP - Service Member Profile (crmforce.mil)
Conflict
Service
Status
Date of Identification
WORLD WAR II
UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCES
Accounted For
04/06/2023
On April 6, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of First Lieutenant Noel Emerson Shoup, missing from World War II.
First Lieutenant Shoup entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Texas and served with the 359th Bombardment Squadron, 303rd Bombardment Group. On February 28, 1944, he was the pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress (serial number 42-5306) nicknamed "Miss Marooki" that took off from Molesworth, England, for a bombing raid against a V-2 rocket site at Bois-Coquerei, France. During the mission, "Miss Marooki" was hit by anti-aircraft fire and spiraled out of control. Three members of the crew bailed out and survived, but the other seven were killed in the crash. The remains of five were recovered and identified after the war, but two, including 1LT Shoup, could not be accounted for. In 2018, the DPAA excavated the "Miss Marooki" crash site and recovered human remains. These, along with a set of unknown remains that was recovered in the area of the crash during the war, were transferred to a DPAA laboratory for analysis. After examination and consolidation, the remains of 1LT Shoup could be positively identified.
First Lieutenant Shoup is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupré, Belgium.
The Dallas Express
By Michele Greer - Junior Editor
The remains of a World War II soldier from Erath County will be brought home and laid to rest this September, thanks to modern DNA technology.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor drew the U.S. into war, Noel Shoup from Dublin put his college dreams on hold and enlisted with the U.S. Army Air Force with only one semester left to graduate.
On February 28, 1944, Shoup — then a first lieutenant with the 359th Bombardment Squadron and 303rd Bombardment Group — took off from Molesworth, England, in a B-17 Flying Fortress named “Miss Marooki” to strike Nazi-occupied France in a bombing raid.
Tragically, he never returned.
Miss Marooki was hit by anti-aircraft fire, spiraled out of control, and crashed. Three crewmembers survived while seven others, including Shoup, were killed.
The remains of only five of those killed were successfully identified, leaving Shoup’s family in the dark — “Missing in Action” was all the telegram notifying them of his loss said.
Lela Shoup remained hopeful that her son would be brought back to her one day, according to her granddaughter.
“Until the day she died. All her life. She never gave up. She never gave up,” Brenda Baumert, Shoup’s niece, told WFAA. “And every day from four to five o’clock, she prayed. I know my grandmother, I know she prayed ‘Dear God bring my boy home.'”
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency successfully found Shoup this April after an excavation of the Miss Marooki crash site in 2018 yielded more remains and a Dublin High School Class of 1936 ring with the initials N.E.S. engraved inside.
DNA testing helped identify and consolidate the remains, and now they are ready to be sent to Texas.
“Now here’s God, 79 years later, he’s answering her prayer. Even though she is dead, he’s answering her prayer. He is bringing her boy home,” Baumert said.
On what would have been Shoup’s 105th birthday on September 11, his family and community members will lay him to rest at the Upper Greens Creek Cemetery next to his parents.
“It brings up a lot of emotion that I did not know I had. I will admit that,” said Sandra Hammons, another of Shoup’s nieces, according to WFAA. “I was just shocked how much emotion was there, for someone that I never physically knew, you know.”
“I see this as an opportunity to let people remember how many of these young men and women gave their lives, not just in that war, but in all the wars,” Hammons added.
While modern advances in DNA technology have made the identification of remains like Shoup’s possible, there is still much to be done.
There are still an estimated 72,196 soldiers from World War II unaccounted for — over 81,000 with recent wars taken into account — meaning thousands of families like the Shoups were left without closure.