About
World War II (1939-1945)
Lawrence Copeland Archer was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1903. In 1935, he was living in Amsterdam, New York, and by 1940, he had moved to Schenectady, New York. Before enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps, Lawrence had been in the National Guard since 1924. While being a Guardsman, he was also working for General Electric.
On October 7, 1942, Lawrence enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. He was a captain serving with the 341st Bomb Squadron, 22nd Bomb Group. Lawrence was on a transfer mission when his crew took off from Chabua Air Base in India aboard a C-46A. The plane was on its way to Pakistan when it experienced mechanical problems, caught fire, and crashed. The crew was later found and interred in a mass grave in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri in 1950.
Sources: The Schenectady Gazette, Find A Grave, Ancestry