My uncle died in WWII flying over Germany. I never met him. While cleaning out some items, I discovered that I had his “annual” created during flight school inEagle Pass, Texas. You can find the entire annual under Resources in this website. He was in class 43-K. My brother, Jim Jacobson, has has collected more information about him but here is a biography of his brief life.[1]
Alan Roy Jacobson was born 8 April 1921, at home near Britt, Hancock County, Iowa, to Christian Jacobson (1883–1950) and Emma (Anderson) Jacobson (1882–1941).
He grew up in Britt, where he appeared in the household with his parents in the 1925 Iowa census and again in the 1930 U.S. census. He was a member of the Congregational Church in Britt.
Family and community glimpses hint at a lively small-town childhood: at about age one, he famously managed to get into kerosene, frightening everyone, but he recovered quickly; and at age five his kindergarten class celebrated with ice cream, wafers, and homemade cookies—brought and served by his mother and the teacher—“a treat on Allen Jacobsen,” as the paper put it.
Alan’s early education stayed rooted in Britt. He graduated from Britt High School on 26 May 1938, and then from Britt Junior College on 23 May 1940—a commencement shared with the high school, where the address was given by Mason Ladd, Dean of the State University of Iowa Law School (a detail that would later feel like foreshadowing). By 4 September 1941, he was a law student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. That same year brought personal loss: his mother, Emma, died of cancer.
Alan continued and completed his studies, graduating in 1942 with a B.A. degree from the State University of Iowa (Iowa City).
On 11 April 1942, he married Marguerite Hall (born 1922)—with the marriage recorded at Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, and an alternate location noted as St. Louis, Missouri in one source.
Alan entered the military in earnest on 8 February 1943, beginning training as a pilot and eventually attaining the rank of 1st Lieutenant with the 78th AAF Fighter Group. His path to combat flying was not straightforward: he spent Christmas 1943 at Ft. Douglas, Utah, initially waiting to train as a bomber co-pilot, but he was deeply unhappy with that direction—he wanted fighters, specifically P-47s—and he ultimately did get selected for fighter training, including time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Eagle Pass, Texas.
On 6 April 1944, he shipped out for Duxford, England, serving with the 78th Fighter Group, 83rd Fighter Squadron; his name was remembered among the pilots who died in service.
Alan was killed in action during operations over Germany in November 1944. On 9 November 1944 he crashed his Thunderbolt about 1 km south of Oeschelbronn and “was found dead,” while an alternate death entry places the event on 10 November 1944 “east of Pforzhelm [Pforzheim].”
Alan was buried on 11 November 1944 in the Oeschelbronn cemetery, with another note indicating Isenburg, Germany, and later reburials after the war—one noted a military cemetery in Belgium, and ultimately to Evergreen Cemetery in Britt, Iowa.
My brother Jim later emphasized that the formal statement describing Alan’s death was written by Ed Miller, Alan’s wingman, and that Miller and fellow flight-school classmate Jack LaGrange (a POW after a crash landing) narrated Alan’s wartime experience in vivid detail—hours of “Remember this” and “Remember that” as they turned the pages of Alan’s diary together.
“Statement from Lt. Ed Miller:
Lt. Jacobson called saying he had been hit. I saw his plane smoking and called about it. He then pulled up to approximately 2,500 feet, clouds preventing his gaining more altitude. He was losing altitude when he rolled the plane on its back. The nose dropped immediately, and it was not until the plane was at about 200 feet when I saw him leave the aircraft. His chute opened but did not billow. He hit the ground a split second later. I circled the inert body four times very low and could observe no movement.”
Jim preserved haunting specifics: the aircraft had been built in New York only months earlier, accepted by the Army in July 1944, and was “95% burned” on impact; the crash site later became the concession stand for a soccer field.
War’s aftermath unfolded slowly. In probate on 28 March 1946 (Garner, Hancock County, Iowa), Alan’s will left his possessions to Marguerite H. Jacobson, and if she predeceased him, then to his sister Betty Carol Jacobson; the estate was valued at $550.
Jim also recorded family memories around the long process of wartime burials and returns, noting that Alan’s body was returned in February 1949, and that their father, Chris, “never recovered from Alan’s loss,” dying in June 1950.
Alan’s name endured in the family, including as the namesake of Jim’s son, Alan Christopher Jacobson.
[1] Facts were collected by me; ChatGPT wrote the narrative, I did the fact checking.
Genealogy Certification: My Personal Journal 