Sam P. Wagner served in the U.S. Army Air Force as a First Lieutenant with the 870th Bomb Squadron, 497th Bomb Group, Very Heavy, during World War II. He was killed on November 24, 1944, while on a mission to bomb the Musashino Aircraft Engine Factory in Tokyo from the Marianas Islands when his B-29 Superfortress (#42-24622) was intercepted by 40 Japanese planes. After a continuous, hour-long fighter attack, his plane was shot down by an enemy Ki-44 fighter. He is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing of the Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii. He was awarded the Air Medal and Purple Heart.
