Part 2
     It was a dangerous place to be. Nearly all the pilots were in
 their early 20s, and the losses were horrendous. The group flew with-
 out fighter cover early in the war, and at least 24 of the original
 50 pilots had been shot down by June of 1943.
     Dooley nearly shared their fate in a January 1943 raid over Ger-
 many in which his plane was so badly damaged he had to get a new one.
 In a radio interview after the incident he said he was, "anxious to
 go after them again."
     Robert L. Cunningham of Knoxville joined Dooley's squadron months
 later. At the base, he recognized his friend from Knoxville High in
 a photograph on a wall before discovering Dooley was already gone.
    "You had a job to do, and you did it," Cunningham said. "Everybody
 was scared, (but) nobody would admit it."
                            Last mission
     Walter Dooley was on his 16th mission on May 14, 1943. He was
 back from a recent leave in London and had written home, telling his
 parents of his pleasant rest. He and Bales were "Rear-End Charlie"
 that day, meaning they were the last plane in the group. They were
 part of a four-plane formation led by Capt. Jack Roller with Cline
 flying to Roller's right as they cruised toward Kiel, along with five
 other groups of B-17s in what was the biggest raid of the war up to
 that time.
     Roller, who now lives in Petaluma, Calif., and Cline both re-
 member Bales, and they vaguely remember Dooley's name, but not the
 person.
     "Bales was a big guy from Idaho, a farmer," Roller recalls.
 "Bales was a real nice guy. I'm sure Dooley was, too, but I just
 don't remember him."
     They never got a chance to know him better.
     Lt. Col. Harry D. Gobrecht, a pilot and the squadron's historian,
 wrote in his book, "Might in Flight," that the bombers were met by
 100 to 150 German fighters. A running battle ensued that lasted
 through the bombers' run on the target and most of the return flight
 to England.
     Dooley's plane was in the thick of it, and Cline chronicled the
 result in stark sentences.
     "Bales ... got his left stabilizer (the left horizontal section
 of the tail) shot up," Cline wrote in his diary. "He was 'Rear-End
 Charlie' about 50 miles off the coast, got hit by a (fighter). Seven
 chutes and he ditched ... blew up in the water."
    No one was recovered.
    The news hit the Dooley family hard. Within a year, father Charles
 died of a heart attack.
     "Everybody in the family credited (his father's death) to the
 sadness of Walter's being miss|ing," Ann Parsons said.
     Benzinger and Dougherty didn't find out what happened until they
 got home. Fincannon, in the Pacific theater, learned in a letter from
 his family.
     "As far as I was concerned, he was one of the unsung heroes of
 the war who went out and did his share, and he died," Dougherty
 said.
     He said all the group went to war but, "Dooley was the only one
 who got killed."
                                Epilogue
     Walter Dooley's monument rises waist-high above the clipped grass
 of Greenwood Cemetery -- near the graves of his parents, although no
 body rests beneath the stone.
     The drone of a lone airplane slowly passing overhead and the
 muted hum of traffic on nearby Tazewell Pike break the silence of a
 hot Thursday in May.
     On the monument a simple eulogy is carved.
     It states:
                            In memory of
                      1st Lt. Walter E. Dooley
                        U.S.A. 8th Air Force
                          Born Nov. 4, 1920
                          Missing in Action
                             May 14, 1943
 End Part 2 of 2
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