Biography
Year at ISU: 1946
Richard was born on May 5, 1924 to Elliot E. Gilmore and Hazel Evans Gilmore. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska with his brother, Elliot Eugene Gilmore. He entered service at Fort Dodge, Iowa, on January 29, 1943. He was promoted to the rank of Corporal in September 1944, and made Sergeant in February 1945.
Before his death near Oshatz, Germany, he served as a radio operator and gunner on a B-17 bomber with the 815th Bomber Squadron (H), 403rd Bomber Group, with the 15th Air Force stationed in Italy.
Sergeant Richard Evans Gilmore posthumously received the Purple Heart on January 31, 1946. In a letter to the Iowa State Alumni Association on February 6, 1946, his mother wrote:
"He was killed by German civilians near Ruhrland Germany on March 22, 1945 after bailing out of his burning B-17 on that date. Richard was the radio operator [on a B-17 Bomber] and the only one of his crew so cruelly killed."