The Detroit News: Berkley man killed in World War II identified
Washington— The Defense Department said today the remains of 11 U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II — including a Michiganian — have been identified.
The military said the men — including 1st Lt. Richard T. Heuss, 23, of Berkley — are being returned for burial with full military honors almost 70 years after they died after their plane crashed in the Pacific Theater.
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Heuss and nine of those will be buried in a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on March 24.
Seven of the 11 are having individual burials as well, but there are only fragmented remains for four of the dead, including Heuss.
The cause of death was unknown, said Larry Greer, director of Public Affairs at the Defense Department's POW/MIA Office.
On Nov. 20, 1943, Heuss, along with 10 other B-24D Liberator crewmembers, took off from Jackson Airfield in New Guinea, on an overwater mission near the northern coast of the country.
During the mission, the only radio transmission from the crew indicated they were 20 miles northwest of Port Moresby, but they never returned to Jackson Airfield.
The men were killed in a crash but the cause was unknown. It could have been weather related, Greer said.
The Detroit News reported on Dec. 7, 1943, Heuss was reported missing and in August 1945 that Heuss had been listed as killed in action.
Searches failed to uncover any evidence of either the crew or the aircraft.
Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service conducted investigations and searches for 43 missing airmen including Army Air Forces Technical Sgt. Charles A. Bode and the other 10 airmen, but concluded in June 1949 that all were unrecoverable.
In 1984, the government of Papua New Guinea notified U.S. officials of a World War II crash site in a ravine in Morobe Province.
A U.S. search and recovery team investigated the crash site in late 1984 and located B-24 aircraft wreckage. They also recovered human remains but didn't complete the mission, citing time constraints and the threat of landslides.
For the next 20 years, multiple teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command tried to access and excavate the location but the threat of landslides made recovery too dangerous to continue.
During a site visit in 2004, local villagers turned over human remains they had previously removed from the area.
Bode, 23, of Baltimore, Md., will be buried Feb. 11 in Arlington National CemeteryThe others killed and identified are to be buried March 24 — including Heuss.
Aside from Heuss, the others to be buried are: 2nd Lt. Robert A. Miller, 22, Memphis, Tenn.; 2nd Lt. Edward R. French, 23, Erie, Pa.; 2nd Lt. Robert R. Streckenbach Jr., 21, Green Bay, Wis.; Tech. Sgt. Lucian I. Oliver Jr., 23 Memphis, Tenn.; Staff Sgt. Ivan O. Kirkpatrick, 36, Whittier, Calif.; Staff Sgt. William K. Musgrave, 24, Hutsonville, Ill.; Staff Sgt. James T. Moran, 21, Sloatsburg, N.Y.; Staff Sgt. James B. Moore, 21, Woburn, Mass.; and Staff Sgt. Roy Surabian, 24, Medford, Mass., will be buried as a group March 24 at Arlington National Cemetery.
Six of those have had separate burials — some in their hometowns, Greer said.
At the end of World War II, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 74,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.
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