Lester Evan Holmes

Lester Evan Holmes was born in July 1919 and was raised in Plainfield. He graduated Nashua High School in the class of 1936. Holmes joined the Air Corps at the beginning of WWII in 1942 and later participated in the Berlin Air Lift in 1946. Holmes was married at the Little Brown Church in Nashua. He served 25 years in the Air Force and logged more than 10,000 flying hours. On May 22, 1967, COL Holmes was flying an observation mission over North Vietnam when his aircraft was struck by enemy fire. A fellow pilot watched as COL Holmes’ plane crashed, but due to the presence of NVA forces a search and rescue was not conducted. The Air Force officially listed him as missing in action. In 1998 an excavation of the crash site in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam unearthed human remains, later identified as Holmes. His remains were laid to rest next to his wife’s body at the Greenwood Cemetery in Ionia 37 years to the day following the incident. Lester Holmes was 48 years old at the time of his death and left behind a wife and three children.