All Were Aboard A C-47 Which Went Down In 1944
The remains of seven Airmen missing in action from World War II
were buried July 15 at Arlington National Cemetery with full
military honors.
The Airmen are Capt. Joseph M. Olbinski, Chicago, IL, 1st Lt.
Joseph J. Auld, Floral Park, NY, 1st Lt. Robert M. Anderson,
Millen, GA, Tech. Sgt. Clarence E. Frantz, Tyrone, PA, Pfc. Richard
M. Dawson, Haynesville, VA, Pvt. Robert L. Crane, Sacramento, CA,
and Pvt. Fred G. Fagan, Piedmont, AL, all U.S. Army Air Forces.
According to information provided by the Defense Prisoner of
War/Missing Personnel Office, the Airmen were aboard a C-47A
Skytrain that departed Dinjan, India, May 23, 1944, on an airdrop
mission to resupply Allied forces near Myitkyina, Burma. When the
crew failed to return, air and ground searches found no evidence of
the aircraft along the intended flight path.
Fifty-eight years later, a missionary provided U.S. officials a
data plate from a C-47 crash site, located approximately 31 miles
northwest of Myitkyina. And in 2003, a Burmese citizen turned over
human remains and identification tags for three of the
crewmembers.
A Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command team excavated the crash site
in 2003 and 2004, recovering remains and equipment. Among other
forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence,
scientists from the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command and the Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA,
which matched some of the crewmembers' families, as well as dental
comparisons in the identification of the remains.
Two caskets were used. Lieutenant Auld's remains were
individually identified and buried separately in a gravesite
adjacent to a group burial site for all of the others. Another
casket contained remains that were positively identified to be
Anderson along with co-mingled group remains that could not be
individually identified. A marker with the names of all crewmembers
will be placed at the gravesite.
Family members from six of the seven Airmen were present for
internment that took place in Section 60, an active burial section
of Arlington National Cemetery. The section is approximately
two-thirds full, with burials taking place there almost daily.
Veterans from many different eras, including World War II, Korea
and Vietnam, are buried in this section, alongside the
servicemembers killed in the recent wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq.