A World War II bombardier gunner who survived a crash-landing in France will be honored during a Memorial Day flag-raising ceremony at C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery.

Staff Sgt. Clyde M. Fauley, a Kalispell native who died in 2014 at age 89, will be honored as the United Veterans of Flathead County raise a new flag at the Veterans Memorial Monument at the cemetery. The ceremony begins at 12:30 p.m. Monday, May 30.

Each year a veteran’s family donates a casket flag to fly over the memorial for a year. Last year the flag was dedicated to Pvt. 1st Class Robert J. Beck; that flag will be retired and returned to his family during the ceremony.

“This annual flag ceremony, in addition to the usual Memorial Day veterans ceremony, is also dedicated to the memory and service of all Flathead County veterans,” Conrad Cemetery Sexton James Korn said.

Fauley enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in November 1942 and served in the 8th Air Force with the 466th bomb group as a nose-turret gunner/togglier during World War II.

When his crew’s B-24 bomber was damaged by a German fighter plane, the crew was forced to make a crash landing in France just nine days after D-Day in 1944. Fauley and his comrades made their way near enemy territory through the British invasion beachhead area and eventually to London via a liberty ship, according to the Fauley family.

Fauley and his crew eventually resumed flying combat missions in a new B-24.

After the war Fauley earned a degree in forestry from Montana State University on the G.I. Bill and went on to have a 30-year career with the National Park Service, retiring in 1983.

He became a park ranger in 1959 and served as a district ranger and in fire and natural resource management positions in Yosemite, Crater Lake and Grand Canyon national parks before heading back to Glacier National Park in 1971 to finish out his career.

The move back to Glacier brought him full circle. He had spent time there in the 1950s as a seasonal park ranger.

Fauley’s widow, Rae Marie, lives in Lakeside.