Remains of WW-II US airmen to finally go home
Kalyan Ray New Delhi, Apr 08, 2016, DHNS
The remains of few USA’s World War-II veterans who died in the North East following a plane crash, would be returned to the Obama administration on April 12 at a ceremony here, which is likely to be attended by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.
The remains will then be flown to Hawaii for an official repatriation ceremony at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on April 14 following which it would be sent to the Defense Department’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for identification, which may take several months.
While there is no official word on Carter’s programme in India, he is likely to be present at the ceremony after he arrives on April 10. Carter has a bilateral meeting scheduled with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar on April 12, sources said.
The human remains from the crash site of a B24 bomber was recovered by the US Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency.
The B24, nicknamed Hot as Hell, crashed in a remote corner of Arunachal Pradesh in January 1944 during the World War-II. The site was identified in 2006 and the talks on a search mission picked up pace only in the last decade.
New Delhi gave search permission in January 2008 and surveys were carried out in the same year. But the operation remained suspended for nearly six years before it resumed in October 2015 when the team was allowed to scour the area for 35 days.
“The US Defense Department informed the families that, of the eight airmen aboard the aircraft when it disappeared, at most only one or two of those airmen have had any remains recovered, because large parts of the crash site – allegedly unsafe due to “unstable terrain” – could not be explored for human remains,” Gary Zaetz, nephew of the aircraft’s navigator First Lieutenant Irwin Zaetz told Deccan Herald.
An independent American investigator Clayton Kuhles has found many crash sites including 15 in Arunachal Pradesh. Crash sites have also been identified in Bhutan, China’s Yunnan province and Myanmar.
The remains will then be flown to Hawaii for an official repatriation ceremony at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on April 14 following which it would be sent to the Defense Department’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for identification, which may take several months.
While there is no official word on Carter’s programme in India, he is likely to be present at the ceremony after he arrives on April 10. Carter has a bilateral meeting scheduled with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar on April 12, sources said.
The human remains from the crash site of a B24 bomber was recovered by the US Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency.
The B24, nicknamed Hot as Hell, crashed in a remote corner of Arunachal Pradesh in January 1944 during the World War-II. The site was identified in 2006 and the talks on a search mission picked up pace only in the last decade.
New Delhi gave search permission in January 2008 and surveys were carried out in the same year. But the operation remained suspended for nearly six years before it resumed in October 2015 when the team was allowed to scour the area for 35 days.
“The US Defense Department informed the families that, of the eight airmen aboard the aircraft when it disappeared, at most only one or two of those airmen have had any remains recovered, because large parts of the crash site – allegedly unsafe due to “unstable terrain” – could not be explored for human remains,” Gary Zaetz, nephew of the aircraft’s navigator First Lieutenant Irwin Zaetz told Deccan Herald.
An independent American investigator Clayton Kuhles has found many crash sites including 15 in Arunachal Pradesh. Crash sites have also been identified in Bhutan, China’s Yunnan province and Myanmar.
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