Archie Dale Staley

Archie Dale Staley, the oldest of three children, was born on Oct. 10, 1920, in Washtucna, to Archie D. Staley, Sr. and Gertrude Benigna Suckow Staley. He graduated from Washtucna High School in 1938 and attended Whitman College in Walla Walla for three years before enlisting in the US Army Air Corps.

In 1943, Lt. Staley was stationed in Lucera, Italy with the 15th AF/ 301st Bomb Group/32nd squadron where he flew 51 missions as a B-17 pilot. On his sixth mission, Archie’s plane and one other were forced to find their way home by flying low through Yugoslavia’s mountains to evade four enemy fig...