BOSTON -- The remains of a missing U.S. World War II airman have been found and identified, 64 years after he disappeared.
U.S. Department of Defense officials said the remains of 2nd Lt. Harold E. Hoskin, originally of Houlton, Maine, have been returned to his family and will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday.
Hoskin was one of five U.S. Army Air Force crewmen on board a B-24D that departed Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, on a cold-weather test mission on Dec. 21, 1943. The aircraft never returned to base and it was not located in subsequent search attempts, defense officials said. The following March, one of the crewmen, 1st Lt. Leon Crane, arrived at Ladd Field after spending more than two months in the Alaska wilderness.
He said that the plane had crashed after it lost an engine, and Crane and another crewmember, Master Sgt. Richard L. Pompeo, parachuted from the aircraft before it crashed. Crane did not know what happened to Pompeo after they bailed out, according to the Department of Defense.
In October 1944, Crane assisted a recovery team in locating the crash. They recovered the remains of two of the crewmen, 1st Lt. James B. Sibert and Staff Sgt. Ralph S. Wenz. Hoskin's remains were not found and it was concluded that he probably parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed.
In 2004, the government received information from a National Park Service historian regarding a possible WWII crash site in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska.
The site was excavated in 2006 and human remains and other non-biological material were recovered, including items worn by U.S. Army officers during WWII.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Hoskin's remains.
Harold Hoskin had dreams of becoming a doctor and was attending Bates College when he learned Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. He left college and joined the Army a few months later in 1942.
After completing pilot training, Hoskin married his girlfriend, Mary, and the couple were awaiting the birth of their first child at the time of the crash. She was never able to discuss her husband's death and did not remarry for more than two decades. She died in 2004.
"Any time I ever asked her about it, she would cry," said Joann Goldstein, 63, of Punta Gorda, Fla., their daughter.
The investigation helped shed light on a chapter of Hoskin family history that was incomplete and seldom talked about after the war. At the urging of family members, Goldstein this summer went through the wartime letters from Hoskin that his wife had boxed up.
When asked what her mother would think of the coming burial ceremony, Goldstein said, "I think she would be honored that he's being honored."
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.
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