pagesofhistory Returned at Last
More than 70 years after their plane was shot down, eight crew members of a World War II-era B-24 Liberator are honored with burial services at Arlington National Cemetery.
O
n April 10, 1944, a B-24 Lib- erator nicknamed “Hot Garters” took off from Nadzab airfield in
New Guinea to attack a Japanese anti- aircraft site in Madang province. The plane was shot down by enemy fire, and its crew of 12 was lost. Four airmen para- chuted from the plane and are believed to have died in captivity; the others were reported missing. The Army Graves Registration Service
recovered the remains of three of the air- men in 1949, but it wasn’t until 2001 that a U.S.-led team located the wreckage of the lost bomber and, over a period of years, recovered and identified the others who went down with it. Earlier this year, the Defense POW/
MIA Accounting Agency announced the identification of the crew members was complete and their remains had been re- turned to their families. A group service honoring the lost crew members was held March 18 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The recovered airmen are
1st Lt. William D. Bernier, Augusta, Mont.; 1st Lt. Bryant E. Poulsen, Salt Lake City; 1st Lt. Herbert V. Young Jr., Clarkdale, Ariz.; Tech Sgt. Charles L. Johnston, Pittsburgh; Tech Sgt. Hugh F. Moore, Elkton, Md.; Staff Sgt. John E. Copeland, Dearing, Kan.; Staff Sgt. Charles J. Jones, Athens, Ga.; and Sgt. Charles A. Gardner, San Francisco.
PHOTO: STAFF SGT. ANDREW LEE, USAF
More than 83,000 American ser- vicemembers around the world remain unaccounted for, including 73,000 from World War II, reports the Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency.
Star- T
Studded Ship Retires he car- rier USS Ranger
(CV-61) saw a lot of action over the years,
including service during the Vietnam War, for which it received 13 Battle Stars, and Operation Desert Shield. Movie buffs might recognize the ship from its appear- ances in films such as Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and TV series such as The Six Mil- lion Dollar Man. The Forrestal-class carrier was com- missioned in 1957 and decommissioned in 1993. The Navy kept it in storage, and when efforts to turn the ship into a muse- um never materialized, it headed in March from Bremerton, Wash., to its final resting place — a scrap yard in Texas.
MO
— Don Vaughan, a North Carolina-based free- lance writer, authors this monthly column.
JUNE 2015 MILITARY OFFICER 73
Airmen conduct funeral honors in December 2014 for one of several recently identified World War II-era airmen who had gone missing.
History Lesson In June 1991, Mount Pi- natubo in the Philippines erupted, spewing a cloud of hot ash and gas and causing mudflows and avalanches. Nearby villages and U.S. mil- itary bases were damaged.
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