Missing
World War II Airmen Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel
Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen,
missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned
to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are
First Lieuenant Robert H. Miller, of Providence,
Rhode Island
Second Lieutenant Robert L. Hale, of Newtonville,
Massachusetts
Staff Sergeant Joseph A. Berube, of Fall River,
Massachusetts
Staff Sergeant Glendon E. Harris, of North
Monmouth, Maine
All served in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Miller,
Hale and Berube were buried last month and Harris' burial is being set
by his family.
On Oct. 24, 1943, a B-25D-1 Mitchell bomber
crewed by these airmen departed Oro Bay Airfield in New Guinea on a bombing
run of enemy targets in Rabaul. As the aircraft neared its target, it was
attacked by Japanese fighter aircraft. Crewmen from other aircraft said
they saw the B-25 crash near a plantation at Kabanga Point. There were
no survivors.
In 1946 and 1947, Australian War Graves search
teams recovered some of the crew's remains from the crash site. Identifications
were not possible at the time and the remains were ultimately buried at
the Manila American Military Cemetery in the Philippines.
From 1999-2000, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Command (JPAC) led a joint U.S. and Papua New Guinea (P.N.G.) investigation
and excavation of a WWII-era crash site in East New Britain Province. One
joint team interviewed individuals having information on the crash, including
an eyewitness who said he saw the B-25 crash near his village. Another
individual found and buried human remains at the crash site in the mid
1990s. The team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage, human remains
and personal effects. A second joint team excavated the site and recovered
additional human remains and crew-related artifacts from the wreckage field.
In 2004, an anthropologist from JPAC's Central
Identification Laboratory (CIL) exhumed the graves at the Manila American
Military Cemetery where he recovered the remains buried there in the 1940s.
Among dental records, other forensic identification
tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces
DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification
of the remains.
Robert
H. Miller
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-659996
8th Bomber Squadron, 3rd Bomber Group, Light
Entered the Service from: Rhode Island
Died: 24-Oct-43
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Silver Star, Distinguished Flying
Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Air Medal, Purple Heart.
His remains were recovered.
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Robert
L. Hale
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-795731
8th Bomber Squadron, 3rd Bomber Group, Light
Entered the Service from: Massachusetts
Died: 24-Oct-43
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.
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Joseph
A. Berube
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 11024162
8th Bomber Squadron, 3rd Bomber Group, Light
Entered the Service from: Massachusetts
Died: 24-Oct-43
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American
Cemetery
Manila, Philippines
Awards: Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple
Heart.
His remains were recovered.
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Glendon
Harris
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 11013668
8th Bomber Squadron, 3rd Bomber Group, Light
Entered the Service from: Maine
Died: 24-Oct-43
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 North Monmouth man shot down
in World War II have come home.
Sixty-three years after Army Air Forces Staff
Sergeant Glendon E. Harris was shot down over New Guinea in World War II,
the military has identified his remains. For decades, the remains lay at
the site until uncovered in 1999. Now they have been returned to his family.
One nephew and two nieces represented the Harris
family last week, when military officials honored the living and dead with
a patriotic, spare-no-expense ceremony, culminating with a burial at Arlington
National Cemetery.
"It was very touching," said Larry Roberts,
68, of Winthrop, who flew to Washington with his wife, Carol. "The Army
went all out for us."
He had last seen his uncle when the senior
Harris came home for a weekend. Larry was then 3 and can't remember the
visit.
The Army used DNA from his mother, Eleanor
Harris Roberts, and her brother Emory Harris, to positively identify the
remains of their brother. That was several years ago, and neither of them
lived to hear the results of the DNA match.
Still, Larry Roberts said he is grateful for
the attention. He said a coffin carrying remains of Harris and three other
men who were in the same B-25 bomber was taken by horse-drawn caisson to
the national graveyard, accompanied by a 30-piece band, 30-soldier honor
guard and a 21-gun salute. Two powerful jets flew overhead, for a few minutes
closing busy Ronald Reagan International Airport.
The entire ceremony was "very moving, very
emotional," said Carol Roberts.
Two of Larry Roberts cousins, Marie Fisher
of East Winthrop and husband Dick Merrill, and Charlotte Powell and husband
Mike of Connecticut, attended the ceremony. So did family members of the
other three men recently identified.
Roberts, a surveyor and engineer, served nine
years in the Air National Guard in Bangor. He said his family didn't talk
much about Glendon Harris. After his mother died, he found a box with official
letters notifying the family of Glendon Harris' death.
Glendon Harris died Oct. 24, 1943. He was a
tail gunner on a B-25 bomber that was attacked by Japanese fighter planes
over New Guinea and crashed. There were no survivors.
On May 19, the Roberts Funeral Home in Winthrop
will hold visiting hours for Glendon Harris from 1-2 p.m., and a service
at 2 p.m. The funeral home was operated by Larry Roberts' late father,
Douglass, and late uncle, Carlton. Burial will follow at Glenside Cemetery,
and Gov. John Baldacci and Maine Army National Guard Adj. Gen. John Libby,
state commissioner of the Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency
Management, are expected to attend. |
Posted:
19 April 2007 Updated: 29 April 2007 |

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