INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – A pair of World War I heroes are on the list of new inductees into the Indiana Military Veterans Hall of Fame .
The Hall of Fame announced the 15 members of its 2024 class Friday morning.
Among the 2024 inductees are two Indiana natives who played critical roles in World War I.
Paul Frank Baer, who was born in Fort Wayne, fought with both the French and U.S. militaries during the war.
Baer is widely celebrated as the first ‘flying ace’ in the U.S. armed services, credited with downing nine enemy aircraft from 1918 to the end of the war.
Baer was also held as a prisoner of war by Germany for six months after his own plane was shot down.
Maurice Edwin Shearer, an Indianapolis native, was a Marine Corps Brigadier General in World War I.
Shearer led Marines in the attack on Belleau Wood in France in 1918, driving German forces completely out of the forest and ending one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
Shearer was awarded the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross for the battle. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.