Thousands of servicemen remain missing. Each war, both past and present, adds more names to the list. World War II and Vietnam saw many pilots vanish and with good reason.These were the times of dogfights and dangerous secret missions. The statistics are troubling, but the impact of MIAs is most deeply felt in the stories of their families, hometowns, and those who were determined to find them.
Recovery Of William Shank
Lieutenant William W. Shank’s comrades last saw him when his P-38 Lightning recovered after a dive. Nobody saw where he went after that because they were involved in a heated sky battle.As they fought over Germany during World War II, Allied bombers were on their way to Bremen when they encountered up to 50 German aircraft. Years after the war, the US military set out to find their missing personnel in Germany. One of the names was 24-year-old Lieutenant William Shank.The coordinates of his last position, a witness, and German records of the event promised strong leads, but nothing panned out. Decades went by before the Americans teamed up with a German researcher who ferreted out more witnesses who saw Shank’s last moments.[1]The Virginia native had crashed to the north on a farm, and excavations soon recovered bits of plane and human bone. A DNA test in 2018 confirmed that the remains belonged to Shank.
The Pacific Pilot
In 2018, the US armed forces trawled a patch in the Pacific Ocean looking for MIAs. Near the island of Ngerekebesang in the Republic of Palau, they discovered a pilot on the bottom of the sea. His remains were still inside his World War II plane that had been shot down about 74 years earlier.At the time, the US airman’s identity could not be determined, but a huge effort went into returning the wreck to the surface. Decades of sand and ocean life had settled over everything and took two months of 12-hour shifts to clear.Operations were directed from a ship that moored above the sunken plane. Divers collected sediment in large buckets that took up to six hours to fill. Then a crane hauled the containers aboard the ship where archaeologists meticulously inspected the sand for artifacts.[2]Apart from the armed forces, civilians also worked on the ship to help with the recovery process. The next step will be to identify the unfortunate Pacific pilot and track down his next of kin.
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The Bauder Family
One night in 1966, James Bauder took off from the deck of the USS Coral Sea off North Vietnam. His squadron departed for a bombing run, but two planes never returned. The 35-year-old lieutenant commander was one of them. Those flying alongside Bauder never saw him crash. There was no distress call or any debris. The father of three had simply vanished.His parents and wife died before his remains were found in 2017. At the time Bauder was lost, his daughter, Jane, was four years old. When she received the long-awaited news, she was 55 and her father had been found in the form of a femur. The fragment turned up in the area where he was last seen.[4]Before the leg bone was located, there had been many false hopes as the navy informed her whenever possible remains were discovered. But this time, DNA proved that it was Bauder. Wanting to pass on the good news, Jane called her aunt, who had provided the genetic sample years ago.Sadly, like most of Bauder’s family, his younger sister would never know that he had been found. She had died days before Jane was informed about her father.
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Recovery Of William Shank
Lieutenant William W. Shank’s comrades last saw him when his P-38 Lightning recovered after a dive. Nobody saw where he went after that because they were involved in a heated sky battle.As they fought over Germany during World War II, Allied bombers were on their way to Bremen when they encountered up to 50 German aircraft. Years after the war, the US military set out to find their missing personnel in Germany. One of the names was 24-year-old Lieutenant William Shank.The coordinates of his last position, a witness, and German records of the event promised strong leads, but nothing panned out. Decades went by before the Americans teamed up with a German researcher who ferreted out more witnesses who saw Shank’s last moments.[1]The Virginia native had crashed to the north on a farm, and excavations soon recovered bits of plane and human bone. A DNA test in 2018 confirmed that the remains belonged to Shank.
The Pacific Pilot
In 2018, the US armed forces trawled a patch in the Pacific Ocean looking for MIAs. Near the island of Ngerekebesang in the Republic of Palau, they discovered a pilot on the bottom of the sea. His remains were still inside his World War II plane that had been shot down about 74 years earlier.At the time, the US airman’s identity could not be determined, but a huge effort went into returning the wreck to the surface. Decades of sand and ocean life had settled over everything and took two months of 12-hour shifts to clear.Operations were directed from a ship that moored above the sunken plane. Divers collected sediment in large buckets that took up to six hours to fill. Then a crane hauled the containers aboard the ship where archaeologists meticulously inspected the sand for artifacts.[2]Apart from the armed forces, civilians also worked on the ship to help with the recovery process. The next step will be to identify the unfortunate Pacific pilot and track down his next of kin.
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The Bauder Family
One night in 1966, James Bauder took off from the deck of the USS Coral Sea off North Vietnam. His squadron departed for a bombing run, but two planes never returned. The 35-year-old lieutenant commander was one of them. Those flying alongside Bauder never saw him crash. There was no distress call or any debris. The father of three had simply vanished.His parents and wife died before his remains were found in 2017. At the time Bauder was lost, his daughter, Jane, was four years old. When she received the long-awaited news, she was 55 and her father had been found in the form of a femur. The fragment turned up in the area where he was last seen.[4]Before the leg bone was located, there had been many false hopes as the navy informed her whenever possible remains were discovered. But this time, DNA proved that it was Bauder. Wanting to pass on the good news, Jane called her aunt, who had provided the genetic sample years ago.Sadly, like most of Bauder’s family, his younger sister would never know that he had been found. She had died days before Jane was informed about her father.
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