Nathan Bedford Forrest III, Airman

Forrest III had no children and was the last male Forrest in the legitimate direct line from his great-grandfather, the Confederate general who led the Ku Klux Klan. A 1928 West Point graduate, he was chief of staff of the Second Air Force and flew with the Eighth Air Force from England. On June 13, 1943, over Kiel, his B-17 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. The Distinguished Service Cross citation says he stayed at the controls while the crew bailed out and the plane exploded. His body washed ashore on Rugen in September; he lies at Arlington.

What the plaque says

Nathan Bedford Forrest III, Airman Brigadier General N.B. Forrest, III, U.S. Army Air Force, was born in Memphis on April 7, 1905 and was the first American General Officer killed in combat against the nazis during World War II. He died while participating in a B-17 bomber raid on Kiel, Germany, June 13, 1943. A 1928 graduate of West Point, he served as Second Air Force Chief of Staff prior to transfer to the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England. He was the son of Memphians Nathan Bedford Forrest, II and Mattie Patton Forrest, and great-grandson of Confederate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1949 his body was returned from Germany and reburied in Arlington National Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — steps away
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 0.9 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 1.0 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 1.3 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.

More markers nearby

• Nathan Bedford Forrest — steps away
• Russwood Park — 0.3 mi
• The First Railroad in West Tennessee The LaGrange & Memphis Railroad — 0.3 mi
• Luke Edward Wright — 0.4 mi