NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department
of Defense
No. 399-07 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9, 2007
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711
Ten Missing WWII Airmen are Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel
Office announced today that the remains of ten U.S. servicemen, missing
in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned
to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Second Lieutenant Raymond A. Cooley,
of Leary, Texas; Second Lieutenant Dudley R. Ives, of Ingleside, Texas;
Second Lieutenant George E. Archer, of Cushing, Oklahoma; Second Lieutenant
Donald F. Grady, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Technical Sergeant Richard
R. Sargent, of North Girard, Pennsylvania; Technical Sergeant Steve Zayac,
of Cleveland, Ohio; Staff Sergeant Joseph M. King, of Detroit, Michigan;
Staff Sergeant Thomas G. Knight, of Brookfield, Illinois; Staff Sergeant
Norman L. Nell, of Tarkio, Missouri;and Staff Sergeant Blair W. Smith,
of Nu Mine, Pennsylvania; all U.S. Army Air Forces.The dates and locations
of the funerals are being set by their families.
Representatives from the Army met with the
next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and
identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors
on behalf of the secretary of the Army.
On April 16, 1944, a B-24 Liberator crewed
by these airmen was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after
bombing enemy targets near Hollandia.The aircraft was altering course due
to bad weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor, but it never
returned to friendly lines.
In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New
Guinea notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage of a
World War II bomber had been found in Morobe Province.Early the next year,
a JPAC team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage and remains.They
also collected more remains and Grady's identification tag from local villagers
who had found the items at the crash site.
Later in 2002, a JPAC team began excavating
the crash site and recovered remains and crew-related items, including
identification tags for Knight and Smith.The team was unable to complete
the recovery, and another JPAC team re-visited the site two weeks later
to complete the excavation.The team found additional remains and identification
tags for Sargent and King.
Among dental records, other forensic identification
tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC and the Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the
identification of the remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department's
mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo
or call (703) 699-1169.
6 September 2007:
This crew will be laid to rest in Arlington
National Cemetery with full military honors following a funeral service
at the Fort Myer Post Chapel.
8 June 2007:
Sixty-three years ago, with tears streaming
down her face at a Wichita, Kansas, train station, Charlotte Archer sent
her husband off to World War II. She was pregnant with the couple's daughter.
Months later,
George Archer and a crew of American servicemen went missing when their
airplane crashed during a bombing mission in New Guinea. Now the widow
knows when she'll get her late husband back.
Charlotte Magdeburg
— she remarried following the death of Archer — recently was told that
her first husband will be buried September 10, 2007, at Arlington National
Cemetery. It will be the first time Magdeburg and Archer will be together
since December 1943.
"I have such
peace," she said Wednesday. "I know what happened. It's been a long time.
I'm so emotional."
Archer's remains
were identified last year in a plane found crashed on a mountain in New
Guinea. Archer, of Cushing, Oklahoma, and nine others were flying in a
B-24 bomber when they got lost in a tropical storm on April 16, 1944.
Archer's identity
was confirmed using DNA from his brother. The couple's daughter was 2 months
old when Archer, 24, died. There are now three grandchildren, said Magdeburg,
84.
Archer will
be buried with military honors. Magdeburg said she always hoped the plane
crashed into a mountain, rather than the ocean, because the men could be
found on land.
Although Archer
was positively identified in September, it has taken the Defense Department
this long to plan his funeral because of all the deaths in Iraq and the
record number of World War II veterans dying, Magdeburg said.
She said she
understands why those men and women get preference.
Magdeburg, a
Southern Baptist, is in a church support group that helps people who have
experienced loss.
When asked
about the hardest part, Magdeburg said it was her daughter, Elaine, not
seeing her father.
She wept when
talking about a young Elaine walking up to strangers on the street and
saying, "Daddy?"
Tuesday, Elaine
Wells heard her father's voice recorded almost 70 years ago when her parents
decided to make a record at a store.
In September,
Archer and Wells, too, will be together — for the first time ever.
"It will make
me very proud to be his daughter," she said. "He gave his life for our
freedom. He gave the ultimate sacrifice."
Raymond A. Cooley,
Second Lieutenant, United States
Army Air Corps
Service # 0-888887
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Texas
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
Second Lieutenant Raymond A. Cooley, 21, of
Leary, Texas, and his blushing bride, Juanita ‘Nita Boddie Cooley, 18,
of Texarkana, Texas, spent their honeymoon night on December 19, 1942,
in the hotel in which they were married earlier that day in Decatur, Alabama.
Neither could have known what was to come of their marriage. But the couple
had been in love since a chance meeting in Texarkana. While attending Texas
High School the year before, Nita worked part time at Boyds Drug Store
at the corner of Broad and Main streets in downtown Texarkana. One night
a strikingly handsome young man came sauntering into the store. It didn't
hurt that he was wearing the uniform of an officer in the U.S. Army Air
Corps. ‘He came in and I noticed him and noticed him looking at me and
I guess sparks flew’ Nita Cooley Jones recalled Friday afternoon at the
home of her granddaughter and grandson-in-law Stacy James and Ben Mayo
of Texarkana, Texas.‘He was from Leary, Texas, and was home on leave from
the service.
Nita made sure she was working every afternoon
and evening in the store from that first night on. Sure enough, it wasnt
long before Cooley asked her out. On their first date, the suave lieutenant
asked the gorgeous teen to marry him. ‘Ray only had 10 days leave and half
of that was up, so I guess he figured he better make sure things happened
fast’ Nita said, laughing. ‘After he left, we kept writing and I started
working on my mother, Lou. That took about a year and then she gave up
and agreed to let me marry him. But she rode with me by train to Alabama.
Back in those years parents insisted on doing things like that, even if
you were 18. After exchanging vows, Ray and Nita exchanged wedding bands.
The gold band she have him contained the inscription, ‘Ray from Nita 12-19-42.
After the wedding, the couple had one night
together because Cooley had to leave early the next morning for training
and exercises in the B-24 Liberator ‘Here Tis. Nitas mother insisted on
remaining another night in the hotel. She rented a room a few doors down
the hall from the happy couples honeymoon suite. The next morning, Cooley
left for B-24 training and she would not see him for several days. It would
be a pattern they would follow for the next two years.
‘Theyd assign him and his crew to one base
and Ray would call and Id be on my way’ Nita said. ‘Id hardly ever see
him and then hed be transferred somewhere else and off Id go again. I made
friends with his co-pilots wife, Mary Ives, married to Douglas Ives, and
we started traveling together with her young son, Rodney. Wed just pack
her Ford and take off. The time finally came for the crews assignment overseas.
In December 1943, Ray and Nita said their last good-bye in Salt Lake City.
What they both desperately hoped was that she would be soon writing him
of her pregnancy with their first child. Ironically, the one and only letter
she received came through his parents, the late Dillard and Claire Cooley
of Leary.
The letter read, in part: ‘I am really sweating
out a letter from Nita to find out if I am going to be a father. I dont
know of anything I want more than to be the father of a child from Nita.
She is the sweetest girl I have ever known and will always be the sweetest
girl in the world for me. It would be impossible for me to love her any
more than I do. I wouldnt trade her for all the money in the world. But
when she did write that letter of her pregnancy, he would never receive
it. ‘I didnt know I was pregnant until three months later after he left,
after I got home to my parents in Texarkana’ Nita said. ‘Mary and I drove
back together, and then she drove on down to her home and family in Corpus
Christi.
After a few weeks, Nita was wondering why she
had not received a letter from her husband, and then Mary called one afternoon.
The first thing Mary said, was ‘Nita, I know that youre thinking like I'm
thinking .... ‘What are you talking about? Thinking about what?
Mary paused, surprised, then: ‘Havent you heard?
‘Heard what? ‘Our boys are missing in action’ Mary told her .
Nita told her parents and then called her aunt
and uncle. Soon most of the family was there for her. Although its been
more than 50 years, today it all seems like a far-away bad dream. But Nita
still remembers her shock. ‘Youre stunned more than anything’ she said.
‘My aunt and uncle went on out to Rays parents in Leary to tell them. Cooley
was declared missing in action after the ‘Here Tis went down in New Guinea
on April 16, 1944, because of bad weather and shortage of fuel. Another
B-24, probably in his formation, had followed him and went down 500 meters
from Cooleys crash site.
Tom McLeod of Texarkana, Texas, a historian
for the 1st Marine Division Association and a noted MIA researcher, said
the ‘Black Sunday bombing mission on April 16, 1944, to Hollandia, New
Guinea, was a massive operation that included Cooleys plane. ‘The Fifth
Air Force with a formation of approximately 100 B-24 bombers lost 37 aircraft
to a late-afternoon frontal system which cut them off from their home bases
of Gusap, Nadzab and Saidor’ McLeod said. ‘Another nine bombers were seriously
damaged, and as a result the Fifth Air Force suffered its largest operational
loss of the war. The freak weather created the biggest weather-related
loss in aviation history. The weather forced Cooley to alter his course
and head for the airfield at Saidor, southeast of Madang. He was never
heard from again.
But in late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua,
New Guinea, notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage
of a World War II bomber had been found high in the mountains of the Morobe
Province in the Finisterre Range at 4,700 feet. In 2002 the remains of
all 10 of the ‘Here Tis crew were collected and identified. JPAC notified
Nita of the news three years ago. She now is proud owner of a professionally
printed book published for her and the other nine MIA pilots, which includes
tremendous details of the massive mission to locate and retrieve their
remains. Nita made another friend during those early years: Charlotte Archer,
wife of navigator Eldon Archer. They remained friends throughout their
ordeal and to this day speak to one another every month or two. Nita, Charlotte
and Mary each remarried, Nita to William L. ‘Kack Jones, who was a B-17
tail gunner serving in Germany during World War II and was a POW in the
famous Stalag 17-B. They were married 49 years at his death in 1993.
Ray and Nitas child was born a few months after
Ray was listed as MIA. Diana R. Cooley today is married to David L. James.
They have three children, Stacy James Mayo, Shanna James Killian and Shelly
James Moss. Among them they have given Nita four great-grandchildren. Stacy
James Mayo, former Miss Texarkana and Miss Texas, said that because of
her ‘Papaw Kacks influence, she became an avid history buff and treasures
a thick leather book made of her grandfathers flight jacket during his
28 months in Stalag 17-B in Germany. Shes also very excited about the recovering
of her grandfather Rays remains, and his future burial in Arlington Cemetery.
‘When Washington, D.C., notified us that they had found my grandfathers
plane and some of his remains, we were all stunned’ Stacy said. ‘They have
since sent his Purple Heart and medals, a book with detailed locations
and photographs of his skull, bones and teeth, and pictures of where his
plane crashed. They are bringing our entire family to Washington, D.C.,
this June for a burial ceremony to honor grandfather Raymond as he is laid
to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
The other nine crew members of the ‘Here Tis
will be interred the same day. One particular item that was found outside
the body of the wreckage but has yet to be returned to Nita is something
she especially is looking forward to retrieving, perhaps at the burial
ceremony in Washington. Its a simple gold wedding band with the inscription:
‘Ray From Nita 12-19-42. |

|
Dudley R.Ives
Second Lieutenant, United States
Army Air Corps
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-687035
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Texas
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart. His remains
were recovered.
Except for a few short memories in his 4-year-old
mind, Rodney Ives relied on stories from his mother and uncles about his
late father, U.S. Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. Dudley Ives.
And pictures such as him standing waist high
to his father, mimicking a military salute. Or the one of his father sitting
at a table with John Wayne at a California Army base where his father's
plane, "Here 'Tis," waited for combat in World War II.
The elder Ives, who was from the Gulf Coast
town of Ingleside, went missing after the plane and all 10 on board disappeared
after a bombing run in New Guinea in 1944. Rodney Ives and other families
of the missing believed they were dead and figured their remains and how
they died would always be a mystery.
But in 2001, a villager in New Guinea spotted
wreckage and reported it to U.S. authorities. It sparked an investigation
that has brought long-awaited closure.
On Monday, the military announced it had made
positive identification of the 10 airmen and is returning remains to surviving
family for burial services.
Rodney Ives had notified the military in 2002
after reading a newspaper report that a U.S. plane from the World War II
era was discovered in New Guinea. He received a phone call from military
officials in December that his father was identified.
For Ives, now 68 and living in Fort Worth,
he was able to attend his father's memorial service Feb. 19 in Aransas
Pass, which was organized by the military. And he is looking forward to
another service in honor of his father and the entire crew at Arlington
National Cemetery.
"(The Aransas Pass service) was a happy day,"
Ives said. "My father was back in Ingleside and not in the jungles of New
Guinea. We thought they probably had crashed out in the ocean. And they
usually don't ever find those people."
The B-24 Liberator plane had bombed enemy targets
April 16, 1944, and was flying to an aerodrome to avoid bad weather when
it disappeared.
The crew's remains were identified using archived
records of the flight, dog tags, ID cards and DNA testing of bones.
Dudley Ives served with the 403rd Bombardment
Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group. A VFW post in Ingleside, where Rodney
Ives donated his father's Purple Heart and pictures, is named after him.
|

|
George Eldon Archer
Second Lieutenant, Untied States
Army Air Corps
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-685343
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Oklahoma
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
The Department of Defense has identified the
remains of an Oklahoma Airman, missing since World War II. News On 6 anchor
Omar Villafranca reports more than 60 years later the family of Second
Lieutenant George Eldon Archer can close a sad chapter in their life. Villafranca
went to Cushing on Tuesday and talked with Archer's widow, nearly 63 years
after her husband’s last mission.
At 23-years-old, Second Lieuenant Eldon Archer
was running bombing missions in the South Pacific. Back home in Cushing,
Oklahoma he was a romantic husband.
"He was a very affectionate person and we were
very much in love,” said Archer’s widow Charlotte Magdeburg.
The day before Eldon's final mission he received
a letter from home, in it was a picture of his loving wife holding their
newborn baby girl. It would be the first and only time Eldon Archer would
see his daughter. That same day, Eldon wrote his wife for the last time.
"And told me I looked like I was holding a
little doll, and that I looked motherly," said Magdeburg.
The next day, on April 16, 1944, Eldon's B-24
Liberator was lost during a powerful storm.
"It was one of the most devastating times in
my life," Magdeburg said.
After 22 months the U.S. military declared
the crew of the B-24 dead.
Eldon's daughter grew up learning about her
dad from family members.
"There was always pictures around when I was
little of my dad, and they told me how smart he was, and how he graduated
from high school when he was 16 and was valedictorian," Archer’s daughter
Elaine Wells said.
Then, 57 years later, in 2001, the U.S. Military
found a crashed B-24 in the mountains of New Guinea. At the site they found
the remains of 10 U.S. servicemen, including Eldon Archer.
For the last few year, the Archer family honored
Eldon at an empty gravesite in Cushing. Soon, they'll bury his discovered
remains in Arlington National Cemetery. The Archer family says the ceremony
at Arlington Cemetery will be a happy one.
Eldon's widow is glad they found his remains,
but says she has always known where he was.
"Well, I know all this time he's been in Heaven,
and I have peace about that," she said.
Charlotte later remarried and had two more
children with Paul Magdeburg, also a World War II veteran.
Archer's remains will be buried with full honors
at Arlington National Cemetery later this year. Charlotte and more than
three generations of Archer's will travel to Virginia for the ceremony.
|

|
Donald
F. Grady
Second Lieutenant, Untied States
Army Air Corps
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-685799
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Pennsylvania
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
The remains of a Harrisburg native killed in
World War II have been identified.
Second Lieutenant Donald Grady, of Harrisburg,
was killed when his B-24 Liberator went down over New Guinea on April 16,
1944.
It is not known whether his plane crashed or
was shot down.
Grady's family members, who have since moved
from the area, have indicated he will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Sam Trout never met his Uncle Don Grady
but grew up feeling that he knew this fun-loving man who enjoyed hunting.
The Fairview Twp. resident said he felt "surprised
and saddened" to learn this week about the identification of the remains
of Second Lieuenant Donald F. Grady and nine other U.S. airmen who had
been missing in action since their World War II bomber mission over New
Guinea 63 years ago.
Grady, also of Fairview Twp., had been a bombardier
on a B-24 Liberator "Here T'is," which failed to return to its base on
April 16, 1944, after bombing targets near Hollandia, a Japanese stronghold
on New Guinea.
At his family's request, Grady will receive
a hero's burial in Arlington National Cemetery with the group remains of
seven of his fellow crew members, said Larry Greer, U.S. Department of
Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office spokesman. One crew member
will be buried in Texas and the other will be buried in Michigan. Greer
said the Arlington burial has not been scheduled.
"Our family always hoped that Uncle Donnie
was alive," Trout said. "But nobody ever knew. I grew up seeing his picture
and felt like I knew him."
Grady, who lived at Milton Hershey School for
nine years, enlisted in the service shortly after his 1941 graduation,
his nephew said. Grady was 20 when he was listed as MIA.
"My dad [the late Harry Trout] used to say
that Uncle Donnie was a fun-loving guy who voluntarily enlisted in the
Army Air Corps," Trout said. "He said Uncle Donnie liked to joke, sing
'Der Fuehrer's Face' and hunt. When World War II started, my parents had
four kids and my mother was pregnant with another. My dad signed up for
the Army and was at D-Day. He was overseas when he heard that Uncle Donnie
was missing in action."
Sam Trout's sister, Dorothea Trout Jinnah of
Virginia Beach, Va., remembered her uncle as "a very good-looking man with
bright, blue eyes and a big dimple in his chin."
"He was very happy, full of life and smiled
a lot," she said. "He loved kids and made us the center of attention. Before
leaving for World War II, he sat me on his knee and told me he would scratch
my name and my brothers' and sisters' names on every bomb that went down.
I hugged him."
Jinnah was 7 when her family learned that his
plane had gone down and he was missing.
"That was the first time I ever saw my father
cry," she said. "It was very traumatic. I imagined that Uncle Donnie was
captured by natives who would see his beautiful blue eyes and not kill
him. I prayed for years that Uncle Donnie would be found. This news brings
closure after 63 years."
Sam Trout said that his dad came home after
the war ended in 1945 and fathered two more children -- his sister, Donna
Trout McKeever of Tiffin, Ohio, born in 1946 and named after their missing
uncle; and Sam Trout, born in 1948.
Amy Trout of Harrisburg, Don Grady's great-niece
and Sam Trout's daughter, called his disappearance "a family mystery."
She keeps a photo of him in her living room and has his gold wristwatch,
which she said still works.
"We've waited forever to find out what happened,"
she said. "It's sad, but now we know. I just wish my grandfather was around
to finally find out what happened to his little brother."
Military officials said the crew was returning
to their air base at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets near
Hollandia when they had to alter their course because of bad weather in
the hopes of reaching another allied air base. They never returned to friendly
lines, the officials said.
In 2001, the wreckage of the B-24 was found
in the mountains of Morobe province in Papua, New Guinea. The next year,
an American recovery team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage
and remains. Local villagers, who had found the crash site, gave them Grady's
identification tags.
Greer said the 10 crew members were identified
through dental records, DNA, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence.
"We have recovered partial identified remains
as well as group unidentified remains," he said. "With the exception of
two who will be buried elsewhere, the remains will be buried as a group."
A U.S. Army Air Corps officer with local ties
was among 10 World War II servicemen whose remains were recently identified
and returned to their families.
One of the airmen, 2nd Lt. Donald F. Grady,
has a nephew, Sam Trout, living in Fairview Township, said Trout's sister,
Dorothea Trout Jinnah of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
She declined further comment. Trout could not
be reached for comment.
Larry Greer, spokesman for the U.S. Department
of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, said Grady has another
relative who said she didn't want to be contacted by media.
The department has offered to bury the servicemen
in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., with full military rites,
Greer said.
He said Grady's family is considering the arrangements.
Two of the 10 servicemen have already been buried by their families in
Detroit and Texas.
Grady was listed as a 20-year-old Harrisburg
resident when he enlisted in 1943. The serviceman's birth date is listed
as Sept. 8, 1923, and his death date as April 16, 1944, when
the B-24 Liberator he and the other airmen
were in never returned to friendly lines after bombing enemy targets near
Hollandia, NewGuinea, Greer said.
"We don't know why the plane crashed," he said.
"We know there was very bad weather at the time. They were bombing Japanese
holdings. Whether the Japanese brought them down or the weather brought
them down, we don't know."
Found by villagers: The crash site was discovered
in late 2001 by villagers in Papua New Guinea, Greer said.
"The villager found two dog tags of Grady at
the site and a dog tag for (Staff Sgt. Joseph M.) King, who was from Detroit,"
he said. "With the assistance of a military officer, they wrote a letter
to the U.S. embassy."
The embassy contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Command, which sent teams to survey the site in 2002. They found the aircraft
wreckage and the airmen's remains and collected other remains, along with
Grady's identification tags, from local villagers, Greer said.
To identify the remains, scientists from the
Joint POW/MIA Accounting command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory used several forensic tools, including dental records and DNA
samples, Greer said.
Then families were located and Army mortuary
officials informed them of the remains' discovery and identifications.
"Many of those relatives who knew or grew up
hearing about the serviceman tell us it's like yesterday that he left and
now it brings it all back," Greer said. "Even though they often tell us
the family has moved on, they realize he was dead, but weren't able to
get information about the circumstances. They want to know what happened
to him." |

|
Richard
R. Sargent
Technical Sergeant, Untied States
Army Air Corps
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 13128550
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber
Group, Heavy
Entered the Service from: Pennsylvania
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at
Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila
American Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart |

|
Steve
Zayac
Technical Sergeant, United States
Army Air Corps
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 20522589
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Ohio
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
Army Airman Steve Zayac has been gone from
Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood nearly seven decades, leaving behind
the mystery of what happened to him and a few photos of him and his crew
in front of their B-24 Liberator bomber.
The plane and its crew disappeared in 1944
after a bombing run over New Guinea during World War II.
In the next month or two, the crew will return
to the United States for a hero's burial at Arlington National Cemetery,
ending the 63-year-old mystery.
For his namesake nephew, it's an appropriate
end for a search marked by sophisticated science and emotion.
"In wartime, a bomber crew is like a family,''
Stephen Zayac said this week from his home in North Royalton, Ohio. "They
ate together, slept together and ultimately died together. I think it's
fitting that they will be buried together.''
Zayac, 55, was born eight years after his uncle's
plane failed to return from its mission. Steve Zayac's remains were officially
identified Monday by the Department of Defense, although the Zayac family
was notified in January.
Steve Zayac joined the Army Air Corps in 1939
after graduating from James Ford Rhodes High School. He rose to the rank
of technical sergeant, serving as a radio operator and gunner on a B-24,
and fought in the Pacific.
He was 24 in April 1944, when the 10-man crew
bombed Japanese positions in New Guinea and was knocked off course because
of bad weather. The plane was never seen again, the Defense Department
said. The crew was declared missing in action.
"This was before advanced maps and radar,''
Zayac said. "My understanding is they basically flew into the side of a
mountain.''
The crew remained undisturbed until 2001, when
the U.S. Embassy in New Guinea was notified that villagers in Morobe province
found the wreckage and remains. One villager found identification tags
of an airman, which were turned over to an Army team assigned to investigate.
Steve Zayac married while he was in the Air
Corps, but his wife is dead. Army investigators contacted Stephen Zayac
and his mother, the elder Zayac's sister-in-law.
Stephen Zayac and his brother traveled to Connecticut
in 2005, where investigators presented family members with what they knew.
The plane had been identified by the serial number on the tail, but making
a definitive identification would require DNA.
Stephen Zayac's father, Harry, died in 1993,
but the family still had a few of his combs and a hearing aid. They turned
the items over to investigators, hoping that a few strands of hair still
on the combs would be enough to make a match.
It was. The DNA matched the DNA in bone fragments
in the plane. The Army alerted Zayac's family in January but held off on
announcing it until they could identify all 10 of the crew members and
contact their relatives.
Zayac said he has been told that a burial
in Arlington National Cemetery will occur in May or June.
"I hate the word closure, but it is nice that
we know what happened,'' he said.
This
family photo provided by Stephen J. Zayac, Army Air Corps Sgt. Steve Zayac
poses in a Cleveland neighborhood before his deployment in World War II.
Helped with DNA genetic material from a family hair brush, the remains
of Zayac, who disappeared in a crash on New Guinea during World War II,
have been identified and will be taken to Arlington National Cemetery for
burial.
|

|
Joseph
M. King
Staff Sergeant, United States
Army Air Corps
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 36576814
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Michigan
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart. His remains
were recovered.
A World War II airman, who disappeared over
New Guinea when he was 20, has been laid to rest next to his parents in
Detroit.
Joseph Michael King, a Staff Sergeant in the
U.S. Army Air Corps, was buried with military honors Friday in Woodmere
Cemetery, The Detroit News reported. The funeral service was held at Holy
Cross Hungarian Catholic Church, where King was baptized in 1923.
Mary King Cibor, King's 91-year-old sister,
said she had to fight for burial in Michigan. The Army wanted to bury King
in Arlington National Cemetery.
"It was the promise I made to my mother and
father," Cibor said.
King was a rear gunner on a B-24 Liberator
that disappeared in a bad storm as it was returning from a mission to a
base in New Guinea in 1943. The wreckage of the bomber was discovered in
2001 and King's remains identified a year later.
King's parents had hoped for years that his
body would be found. In 1975, they put a memorial marker in the family
plot.
Shots rang out. Taps filled the air. U.S.
Staff Sgt. Joseph Michael King is home at long last.
Nearly 63 years to the day after his aircraft
went missing in the jungles of New Guinea, King was laid to rest Friday
at Woodmere Cemetery. The burial is a life's mission fulfilled for his
oldest sister, Mary King Cibor,
The 91-year-old from Lincoln Park fought five
years to bring his remains home after they were recovered in 2001 and identified
in 2002. Through years of waiting and hoping, she vowed never to give up
until King was found and brought home.
"It was the promise I made to my mother and
father," said Cibor, who through the years made sure a portrait of King
hung in the background of every family photograph and his name was mentioned
at every holiday dinner. "My father, before he died, said, 'Never give
up.'?"
In the end, the athletic 20-year-old, known
for his ready smile, returned to the same neighborhood where he was born
July 20, 1923. More than 100 people attended his funeral at Holy Cross
Hungarian Catholic Church, the same parish in which he was baptized.
King was the rear gunner on a B-24 Liberator
that was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing
enemy targets near Hollandia on April 16, 1944. There was a terrible storm,
and the plane was forced to alter course. It was flying to the aerodrome
at Saidor when it disappeared, taking 10 crewmen with it.
So many planes went down that day they called
it "Black Sunday" during World War II.
For years, the family hoped someone would find
King's body. In 1975, they placed a granite monument featuring a relief
of their young son in his Aircap, at the family plot in Woodmere Cemetery.
Then, in 2001, the bomber was discovered in Morobe Province in New Guinea.
A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command
surveyed the site in 2002 and recovered remains as well as identification
tags and other objects. The military wanted to bury him at Arlington National
Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
But Cibor fought unsuccessfully to have him
brought back home. Finally, in October, Cibor caught the ear of Sherry
Huntington, 57, of Lincoln Park, a member of the Lincoln Park Historical
Commission and president of the Downriver Genealogical Society.
Huntington called U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn.
With his help, the military agreed to return the remains.
"I said, 'We can get him back, I'll help you,'?"
Huntington said. "We knew it would take a couple months, we didn't know
it was going to take six.
"If it was my husband, son or brother, I'd
want him back too. This lady needed closure," Huntington said. "She said
if it came to pass that she was no longer here when her brother came home,
that I should see to it that her brother was buried at Woodmere."
Cibor said she always had a special bond with
her brother because they share the same birthday.
"He was born at the house, and when my dad
picked me up and brought me home that day, he placed the baby in my arms,
and (said) 'This is your birthday present,'?" Cibor said. "I always felt
especially close to him because of that."
Friday, Sgt. 1st Class Melissa Mitchell, a
member of a U.S. Army Honor Guard sent from Fort Knox, Ky., shepherded
Cibor through what was a joyous occasion.
Six servicemen carried her brother's body up
the steps of the resplendent historic church.
After the burial, Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Borja
handed Cibor the flag that draped her brother's coffin. She clutched it
to her heart.
"It's a miracle," Cibor said. "Now my life
is complete." |
|
Thomas
G. Knight
Staff Sergeant, United States
Army Air Corps
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 16126500
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Illinois
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Thomas
Knight went missing in action in World War II. In the 60 years since, his
life and valor were relegated to a dusty scrapbook and a stack of letters
stuffed in a cedar chest in a distant relative's basement.
This week, Knight returned to his family's
consciousness when the Defense Department announced his remains had been
identified with those of his nine crewmates in Papua New Guinea.
The announcement answered one family mystery
but stoked another.
"All I could think about was, 'Oh, I wish Grandpa
was here for this,' "said Ann Knight of west suburban Lyons, daughter-in-law
of the late "Grandpa Art," who was Thomas Knight's only sibling. "He wanted
so much to have closure for this."
In 2001, about two years after Arthur Knight
died, Ann Knight began receiving calls from a representative of the Joint
POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), who told her the department may have
found Thomas Knight's remains in the South Pacific country. The representative
asked for Ann Knight's help in finding his blood relatives for DNA tests.
Ann Knight's husband, William, died in 1981.
The couple had a son and daughter, but neither is a blood relative of Knight
because William Knight was adopted.
Ann Knight provided contact information for
relatives of Knight's mother. Over the next few years, the representative
would call occasionally and ask for something else. All of that work ended
when JPAC matched a relative's DNA with a sample from Knight's remains.
On Monday, the Defense Department announced
it had identified all 10 crew members of the B-24 Liberator that never
returned to the aerodrome at Nadzab, Papua New Guinea, after bombing enemy
targets near Hollandia on April 16, 1944. Sgt. Thomas G. Knight, a Brookfield
resident and graduate of Morton High School who had enlisted Sept. 21,
1942, was a 23-year-old gunner on that plane. He had completed 19 missions,
according to certificates and newspaper clippings in the family's scrapbook.
"The aircraft was altering course due to bad
weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor" Papua New Guinea,
a statement from the Defense Department reported, "but it never returned
to friendly lines."
A village resident in the Morobe Province of
Papua New Guinea found the wreckage in late 2001 on a densely wooded hillside,
said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Defense Department's POW/MIA office.
Another resident and a member of the armed forces of Papua New Guinea sent
a letter notifying the U.S. Embassy there.
JPAC began examining and excavating the site
in 2002, Greer said. In the next few months, the crew found ID tags for
Knight and four other crew members and human remains. Using dental records,
other forensic tools, mitochondrial DNA, circumstantial evidence and documents
from military archives, the JPAC team and the Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory definitively identified all 10 members of the crew.
"Each of these is a detective case that has
gone cold for 40-60 years," Greer said. "It simply takes that long to develop
leads."
Knight's remains and those of his crew members
are in JPAC's lab in Hawaii and will be flown to Washington, where relatives
will decide whether to bury individual remains in Arlington National Cemetery,
in a cemetery closer to the crew members' hometowns or in a national cemetery
near those hometowns, Greer said. The military also will present a group
funeral and burial at Arlington for fragments of crew members' remains
that are unidentifiable.
Knight's relatives have yet to decide on arrangements,
Greer said. Although Ann Knight spoke publicly Tuesday, the other relatives
have declined to be interviewed.
Knight's parents died in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. Ann Knight obtained the scrapbook and Knight's letters after
Arthur Knight's death.
About half of the scrapbook is dedicated to
Thomas Knight and includes photos of him in uniform and his girlfriend,
Doty. A telegram notifying the family that he was missing, a letter dated
Feb. 25, 1946, listing a "presumptive finding of death" and condolences
from then-Illinois Gov. Dwight Green are pasted in the pages. The family
also held onto his Purple Heart and his letters.
"Thanks a million for your thoughtfulness and
kindness," he wrote in gratitude for Christmas gifts sent to him in Australia
in 1943. "I'm sorry I couldn't send you folks anything for Xmas but time
wouldn't permit."
In that same letter, he notes that Australia
is similar to the U.S., "but not as modern. They still use a lot of old
cars and the women still wear long skirts," he wrote.
He signed all his letters, "Love, Tommy."
Ann Knight's son, Jim Knight, started reading
the letters Monday night, trying to appreciate the great-uncle he never
met, but also looking for clues to that family mystery. Grandpa Art told
relatives that Knight's final flight was a "suicide mission," Jim Knight
recalled, a kind of raid that supposedly provided planes with enough fuel
to reach a target to bomb, but not enough fuel to return to base.
The Defense Department's Greer said, "We really
don't know," what caused the B-24's crash.
Jim Knight is ready to begin researching.
"It would be great to know what actually happened,"
he said.
In the 60 years since he went missing in action during
World War II, the life and valor of U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant
Thomas Knight had become relegated to a dusty scrapbook and a stack of
his letters stuffed in a cedar chest in a distant relative's basement.
This week, Knight returned to his family's
conscience when the Defense Department announced his remains had been identified
with those of his nine crewmates in Papua, New Guinea.
The announcement answered one family mystery,
but stoked another.
"All I could think about was, `Oh, I wish grandpa
was here for this,'" said Ann Knight of west suburban Lyons, Ill., daughter-in-law
of the late "Grandpa Art," who was Thomas Knight's only sibling. "He wanted
so much to have closure for this."
In 2001, about two years after Arthur Knight
died, Ann Knight began receiving calls from a representative of the Joint
POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), who told her the department may have
found Sgt. Thomas Knight's remains in the South Pacific country. The representative
asked for Ann Knight's help in finding his blood relatives for DNA tests.
Ann Knight's husband, William, died in 1981.
The couple had a son and daughter, but neither is a blood relative of Knight
because William Knight was adopted.
Ann Knight provided contact information for
relatives of Knight's mother. Over the next few years, the representative
would call occasionally and ask for something else. All of that work ended
when JPAC matched a relative's found a blood relative and matched that
person's DNA with a sample from Knight's remains.
On Monday, the Defense Department announced
that it had identified all 10 crew members of the B-24 Liberator that never
returned to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets
near Hollandia on April 16, 1944. Sergeant Thomas G. Knight, a Brookfield,
Ill., resident and graduate of Morton High School who had enlisted September
21, 1942, was a 23-year-old gunner on that plane.
He had completed 19 missions, according to
certificates and newspaper clippings in the family's scrapbook.
"The aircraft was altering course due to bad
weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor," a statement from
the Defense Department reported, "but it never returned to friendly lines."
A village resident in the Morobe Province of
Kunikio Village in Papua, New Guinea, found the wreckage and human remains
in late 2001 on a densely wooded hillside in Morobe Province, said Larry
Greer, spokesman for the Defense Department's POW/MIA office. Another resident
and a member of the armed forces of Papua New Guinea sent a letter notifying
the U.S. Embassy there.
JPAC began examining and excavating the site
in 2002, Greer said. In the next few months, the crew found ID tags for
Knight and four three other crew members and their human remains. Using
dental records, other forensic tools, mitochondrial DNA, circumstantial
evidence and documents from military archives, the JPAC team and the Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory was were able to definitively identify
identified all 10 members of the crew.
"Each of these is a detective case that has
gone cold for 40-60 years," Greer said. "It simply takes that long to develop
leads."
Knight's remains and those of his crew members
are in JPAC's lab in Hawaii and will be flown to Washington, D.C., where
relatives of all the crew will decide whether to bury individual remains
at in Arlington National Cemetery, in a cemetery closer to the crewmembers'
hometowns or in a national cemetery near those hometowns, Greer said. The
military also will present a group funeral and burial at Arlington for
fragments of crewmembers' remains that are unidentifiable.
Knight's blood relatives have yet to decide
on arrangements, Greer said. Although Ann Knight spoke publicly Tuesday,
the other blood relatives also have declined to be interviewed.
Knight's parents died in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. Arthur Knight died in 1999. Ann Knight obtained the scrapbook
and Knight's letters after Arthur Knight's death.
About half of the scrapbook is dedicated to
Sgt. Thomas Knight and includes photos of him in uniform and his lovely,
brown-haired girlfriend, Doty. A telegram notifying the family that he
was missing, a letter dated Feb. 25, 1946, listing a "presumptive finding
of death" and condolences from then-Illinois Gov. Dwight Green are pasted
in the pages. The family also held onto his Purple Heart and his letters.
Those letters reveal a perceptive and friendly
young man.
"Thanks a million for your thoughtfulness and
kindness," he wrote in gratitude for Christmas gifts sent to him in Australia
in 1943. "I'm sorry I couldn't send you folks anything for Xmas but time
wouldn't permit."
In that same letter, he notes that Australia
is similar to the U.S., "but not as modern. They still use a lot of old
cars and the women still wear long skirts," he wrote.
In an earlier letter, he noted that he'd just
finished one letter to his mother and decided to write another to his brother,
Art. Then Sgt. Knight cautions his family against sending air mail, noting
that it fails to arrive any sooner and is more expensive.
"So Art might be in the Army pretty soon, huh,
well, I think that he will like it," Knight wrote in October 1942. "It
isn't as bad as people think. He gets along with people so he won't have
any trouble."
He signed all his letters, "Love, Tommy."
Ann Knight's son, Jim Knight, started reading
the letters Monday night, trying to appreciate the great-uncle he never
met, but also looking for clues to that family mystery. Grandpa Art told
relatives that Knight's final flight was a "suicide mission," Jim Knight
recalled, a kind of raid that supposedly provided planes with enough fuel
to reach a target to bomb, but not enough fuel to return to base.
The Defense Department's Greer said, "We really
don't know," what caused the B-24's crash.
Jim Knight is ready to begin researching.
"It would be great to know what actually happened,"
he said. "There is a huge stack of letters, and I guess I'll take my time
and go through all of them." |

|
Norman
L. Nell
Staff Sergeant, United States
Army Air Corps
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 17164634
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Missouri
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
Relatives don't recall a funeral after Norman
L. Nell's plane disappeared during a World War II mission over New Guinea.
His parents in Tarkio kept hoping the 21-year-old
airman had survived a storm that downed about three dozen aircraft on April
16, 1944.
But answers about the fate of John and Veda
Nell's only child didn't come until long after their deaths. Recently,
the remains of Nell, an assistant engineer, and nine other crew members
were identified and will be returned to their families for burial.
"They never could come up with what happened
to him," said Thelma Woolsey, who graduated from Tarkio High School with
Nell in 1941. "It was very sad because it just devastated both of them."
Nell was aboard a B-24 Liberator that crashed
as it was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing
enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft altered course because of bad
weather and was flying to the aerodrome at Saidor when it disappeared,
the Defense Department said in a statement.
Wreckage of a World War II-era bomber was found
in Morobe Province in New Guinea in 2001, according to the Defense Department's
Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. A team from the Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command surveyed the site in 2002 and recovered remains as well
as identification tags and other objects.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory used dental records, mitochondrial DNA and other
tools to identify the remains.
Officials even found Nell's high school class
ring, which will be sent to Larry Schreiner, a second cousin of Nell's.
To Schreiner's knowledge, the family never
had a funeral.
"They didn't know if he went down in the jungle,
they didn't know if he went down in the sea, they didn't know anything,"
Schreiner said. "But they always had hope that he was alive."
Eventually, hope faded. A headstone rests in
a Tarkio cemetery honoring Nell, who wasn't married and had no siblings.
Schreiner said he will "absolutely" be in Arlington, Va., in late June
when Nell is honored with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
"It's what his mother wanted," Schreiner said.
Relatives don't recall a funeral after
Norman L. Nell's plane disappeared during a World War II mission over New
Guinea.
His parents in Tarkio, Mo., kept hoping the
21-year-old airman had survived a storm that downed about three dozen aircraft
on April 16, 1944.
But answers about the fate of John and Veda
Nell's only child didn't come until long after their deaths. Recently,
the remains of Nell, an assistant engineer, and nine other crew members
were identified and will be returned to their families for burial.
"They never could come up with what happened
to him," recalled Thelma Woolsey, who graduated from Tarkio High School
with Nell in 1941. "It was very sad because it just devastated both of
them."
Nell was aboard a B-24 Liberator that crashed
as it was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing
enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft altered course because of bad
weather and was flying to the aerodrome at Saidor when it disappeared,
the Defense Department said in a statement.
Wreckage of a World War II-era bomber was found
in Morobe Province in New Guinea in 2001, according to the Defense Department's
Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. A team from the Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command surveyed the site in 2002 and recovered remains as well
as identification tags and other objects.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory used dental records, mitochondrial DNA and other
tools to identify the remains.
Officials even found Nell's high school class
ring, which will be sent to Larry Schreiner, a second cousin of Nell's.
"Everyone always wondered what happened," Schreiner
said Tuesday by phone from his home in Florida. "Now we finally have some
closure."
To Schreiner's knowledge, the family never
had a funeral.
"They didn't know if he went down in the jungle,
they didn't know if he went down in the sea, they didn't know anything,"
Schreiner said. "But they always had hope that he was alive."
Eventually, hope faded. A headstone rests in
a Tarkio cemetery honoring Nell, who wasn't married and had no siblings.
Schreiner said he will "absolutely" be in Arlington, Va., in late June
when Nell is honored with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
"It's what his mother wanted," Schreiner said.
More than 60 years after his disappearance,
Staff Sgt. Norman L. Nell finally will be memorialized.
Nell, of Tarkio, Mo., was only 21 when he disappeared
in April 1944 during a World War II mission over New Guinea. He was a U.S.
Army crewman on a B-24 Liberator, and his plane was altering course in
bad weather and disappeared without a trace — until the wreckage was found
in 2001.
Remains of the 10 crewmen had never been identified.
Until now.
The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced
that remains of the 10 crew members have finally been identified.
“Everyone always wondered what happened,” Larry
Schreiner, a second cousin of Nell’s, said Tuesday by phone from his home
in Florida. “Now we finally have some closure.”
That was hard to come by in the weeks and months
and years after Nell’s disappearance, so much so that — to Schreiner’s
knowledge — the family never had a funeral.
“They didn’t know if he went down in the jungle,
they didn’t know if he went down in the sea, they didn’t know anything,”
Schreiner said. “But they always had hope that he was alive.”
Hope faded, however, and Nell’s family had
to move on. His father died in 1948, Schreiner said, and his mother died
in 2002 at age 104. Nell was an only child and was unmarried, according
to Schreiner.
So Schreiner will “absolutely” be in Arlington,
Virginia, in late June when Nell is honored with full military honors at
Arlington National Cemetery. “It’s what his mother wanted,” Schreiner said.
According to the Department of Defense, Nell’s
crew had just bombed enemy targets near Hollandia (now called Jayapura)
and was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea. Bad weather forced
the aircraft to alter its course, and the crew never returned to friendly
lines.
In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New
Guinea notified the Department of Defense that wreckage of a World War
II bomber had been found in Morobe province. That set in motion a chain
of events that, over several years, led to this week’s formal identification.
Officials even found Nell’s high school class
ring, which will be sent to Schreiner.
Schreiner said that he had been in contact
with U.S. military officials for years about the wreckage and that he and
other family members had provided DNA samples that proved conclusive. He
said military officials had given him a report about the incident that
answered scores of questions: The aircraft wasn’t shot down but ran out
of fuel, for example, and Nell died of blunt-force trauma to the head from
the impact of the crash.
“I find it very interesting that the service
went to this trouble to find missing-in-action people,” Schreiner said.
“This was really something.” |
|
Blair
W. Smith
Staff Sergeant, United States
Army Air Corps
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 33135850
403rd Bomber Squadron, 43rd Bomber Group,
Heavy
Entered the Service from: Pennsylvania
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart
Staff Sgt. Blair W. Smith will be coming home
soon.
Smith left his home in NuMine, Armstrong County,
a few days after his 22nd birthday to join the Army Air Forces in the early
days of World War II.
He died in 1944, when his plane went down on
the north coast of what is now Papua New Guinea, the eastern half of the
island of New Guinea, north of Australia.
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel
Office announced Monday that the remains of Smith and nine other crew members
have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial
with full military honors.
Sgt. Richard R. Sargent, of North Girard, Erie
County, and 2nd Lt. Donald F. Grady, of Harrisburg, also were on the B-24
Liberator that was returning from a bombing raid on what was then known
as Hollandia, a Japanese stronghold on the island.
Larry Greer, of the POW/Missing Personnel Office,
said the plane was flying to Nadzab, New Guinea, on April 16, 1944, and
changed course because of bad weather. The crew was trying to reach an
aerodrome at Saidor when the plane went down, he said.
"That's all we know. We don't know if they
went down in bad weather or were shot down," said Greer.
The Armstrong County Memorial War Wall outside
the courthouse in Kittanning lists Smith as killed in action, but the family
didn't know what happened to him, said Earl D. Smith, 47, who lives in
his uncle's childhood home on Main Street in Yatesboro, a few miles from
NuMine.
"I know my grandmother always waited for him
to come back," said Smith, whose late father, Earl G. Smith, was a brother
of Blair Smith.
"All my dad knew was that he was missing,"
Smith said. "They didn't know if he was shot down or a prisoner of war."
The U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea notified
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in late 2001 that wreckage of a World
War II bomber had been found.
The site was surveyed several times in 2002
and the identification tags of Smith, Sargent and Grady were located.
"A young lady from the Army called me. I couldn't
believe what I was hearing over the phone," Smith said yesterday.
Greer said records show that Blair W. Smith
was born on January 13, 1920, and enlisted on January 26, 1942, seven weeks
after Pearl Harbor.
He enlisted in the Army Air Forces, the aviation
branch of the Army in World War II when there was no separate Air Force.
Smith was the son of Isaac Daniel Smith, who
died in a mining accident in the 1930s, and Dora Lloyd Smith, who died
in 1960. The couple had four other children -- Earl and Lawrence Smith,
Garnet Febringer and Grace McCartan -- who are all deceased.
Before McCartan died, the military was able
to obtain a DNA sample to make a positive identification of Smith's remains,
Greer said.
Smith's family has not completed funeral arrangements.
"Some other families have made the decision
to bury their loved ones in Arlington National Cemetery, but they could
bury them in their hometown cemetery, if they wish, and the Army will take
care of all expenses," Greer said.
Earl Smith said he is happy the military never
stopped trying to find his uncle.
"I only wish my dad and my grandmother could
have known," he said. "They never had the chance for closure." |
|
Posted:
15 April 2007 Updated: 20 April 2007 Updated: 8 June 2007 Updated: 6 September
2007 Updated: 30 September 2007 |

|