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Full Honors O
n June 26, 1943, 10 Army air- men took off in their B-17E Flying Fortress, nicknamed “Naughty
but Nice,” on a bombing mission over Papua New Guinea during World War II. The aircraft was shot down by Japanese fighter aircraft, and only the mission’s navigator, Army 1st Lt. Jose L. Holguin, survived. On Sept. 21, the remains of those nine airmen killed were interred as a group at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., with full military honors. The crew’s plane was heading for a mission over Rabaul when it was dam- aged by antiaircraft fire and ultimately shot down. Holguin bailed out of the plane and was severely injured; natives of Papua New Guinea initially sheltered him but turned him over to the Japanese when they couldn’t care for his wounds. He was held as a POW for two years. In 1949, locals led military officials
to the crash site of a B-17; remains were recovered but could not be identified so they were buried as unknown at the Na- tional Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. In 1982 and 1983, Holguin returned to the area and located the crash site, finding a fragment of the aircraft nose art. In 1985, the remains in Hawaii were exhumed and identified as several of the crew members. And in 2001, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command excavated the crash site and found additional human remains and crew-related equipment.
PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/AP T
More than 68 years later, the remains of World War II aviators who fought in the Pacific theater are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., with full military honors.
Holguin, who had made it his mission to find his missing colleagues, died in 1994 in Los Angeles.
Fort Becomes National Park he Army in September turned over management of historic Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., to
the state, which plans to turn a sizeable portion of the fort’s land at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay into a na- tional park. The fort was ordered closed in 2005 as part of a base realignment and closure plan. The fort has been in continu- ous operation since 1823 and, in recent decades, served as the home of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. Army officials handed over a giant key to the fort to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to sym- bolize the transfer. The fort contains more than 170 his- toric buildings, 8 miles of waterfront, and a 332-slip marina. The state wants to turn part of the fort into a national mon- ument and use the remainder for housing and other developments in line with the area’s architecture.
MO
History Lesson On Dec. 9, 1992, 1,800 Marines arrived in Moga- dishu, Somalia, as part of a multinational force sent to restore order to the war-torn country. A year later, two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, killing 18 American soldiers.
A casket with remains repre- senting the nine Army airmen who perished when their B-17E Flying Fortress was shot down is carried at Ar- lington National Cemetery, Va.
DECEMBER 2011 MILITARY OFFICER 73
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