Isle team hopes to
recover WWII crewSeven aviators lie in a common
grave near an Aleutian crash site
For the past six decades, an unmarked grave on the slopes of a volcano on Kiska island in the Aleutians has held the remains of seven PBY-5 air crew members who were lost during a World War II mission.
CORRECTION
Thursday, July 24, 2003>> An Army spokeswoman said the PBY-5 Catalina that crashed in June 1942 on the slopes of Kiska volcano in the Aleutian Islands was on a bombing mission to Kiska. She said she had mistakenly referred to another lost aircraft when she said in an article on Page A5 yesterday that it was unclear what type of mission it was on.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at fbridgewater@starbulletin.com.
Now a team of nine forensic experts from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii hopes to bring these servicemen back for a proper military burial. The Army is relying on the findings of a professor who discovered aircraft wreckage two years ago while he was conducting research on Kiska.
"The data plate he found," said Army spokeswoman Ginger Couden, "correlates to a PBY in our database that was last seen over Kiska island before it was reported missing."
Couden said it is not clear what type of mission the PBY was on during a flight from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians to Kodiak Naval Air Station in Alaska in June 1942. Dutch Harbor was bombed in early June 1942 by Japanese naval air forces, which also attacked Midway.
She said a search team located the wreckage in 1943 on Kiska and buried all seven crew members in a common grave. There were attempts made in 1946 and 1947 to recover the remains, but heavy snow prevented the teams from reaching the burial site.
Couden said the CILHI team hopes to begin its scheduled three-week search operation by the end of this month.
"This will be the optimal time to do this recovery: Snow and ice accumulation are expected to be at their lowest level," she added.
The recovery team will be working from a chartered commercial vessel and will be flown daily by helicopter to the suspected crash site, at 2,750 feet on the northwestern side of the Kiska volcano.
The Aleutian search and recovery team is one of 18 from CILHI whose task is to try to account for missing American servicemen from World War II through the Vietnam War.
There are more than 78,000 Americans unaccounted for from World War II, 8,100 from the Korean War, 1,800 from the war in Southeast Asia, 120 missing as a result of the Cold War and one serviceman missing from the Persian Gulf War.
Once the remains are returned to the Army's laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, a staff of 30 forensic anthropologists and four forensic dentists tries to identify them. So far, the Army laboratory has identified more than 1,100 individuals listed as missing in action since it began operations in 1973.
