Red Cross personnel killed in the crash of a B-25 on Corsica, along with 4 US Army servicemembers
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced March 3, 2011 that the remains of four US Army servicemen and one civilian, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are:
CPT Lewis J Geerlings, 36, Freemont, MI; 1LT Ray Fletcher, 27, Westboro, MA; SSG Edwin Elliott, 24, Mattoon, IL; CPL Richard H Loring, 31, NY; and American Red Cross civilian Carolyn Chapin.
The remains representing the entire group were buried in a single casket on March 3, 2011 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC.
On May 10, 1944, the five were aboard a B-25C Mitchell bomber which took off from Ajaccio, Corsica, on a courier mission to Ghisonaccia, Corsica. They failed to reach the
destination and were officially reported missing on May 13, 1944. Two days later French police reported finding aircraft wreckage on the island's Mount Cagna. The US Army's Graves Registration Command visited the crash site in 1944 and reported remains were not recoverable. In May 1989, Corsican authorities notified US Army Memorial Affairs Activity-Europe that they had found wreckage of an American WWII-era aircraft and turned over human remains collected at the mountainous location. They sent a survey team to the site and determined the terrain was too rugged to support a recovery effort. In 2003 and 2004, two French nationals provided US authorities crew-related equipment recovered from the crash site. A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the location in September 2005 and recovered additional human remains as well as more crew-related equipment. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA, which matched that of some of the crewmembers' families, in the identification of the remains.
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced March 3, 2011 that the remains of four US Army servicemen and one civilian, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are:
CPT Lewis J Geerlings, 36, Freemont, MI; 1LT Ray Fletcher, 27, Westboro, MA; SSG Edwin Elliott, 24, Mattoon, IL; CPL Richard H Loring, 31, NY; and American Red Cross civilian Carolyn Chapin.
The remains representing the entire group were buried in a single casket on March 3, 2011 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC.
On May 10, 1944, the five were aboard a B-25C Mitchell bomber which took off from Ajaccio, Corsica, on a courier mission to Ghisonaccia, Corsica. They failed to reach the
destination and were officially reported missing on May 13, 1944. Two days later French police reported finding aircraft wreckage on the island's Mount Cagna. The US Army's Graves Registration Command visited the crash site in 1944 and reported remains were not recoverable. In May 1989, Corsican authorities notified US Army Memorial Affairs Activity-Europe that they had found wreckage of an American WWII-era aircraft and turned over human remains collected at the mountainous location. They sent a survey team to the site and determined the terrain was too rugged to support a recovery effort. In 2003 and 2004, two French nationals provided US authorities crew-related equipment recovered from the crash site. A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the location in September 2005 and recovered additional human remains as well as more crew-related equipment. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA, which matched that of some of the crewmembers' families, in the identification of the remains.
Red Cross personnel killed in the crash of a B-25 on Corsica, along with 4 US Army servicemembers
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced March 3, 2011 that the remains of four US Army servicemen and one civilian, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are:
CPT Lewis J Geerlings, 36, Freemont, MI; 1LT Ray Fletcher, 27, Westboro, MA; SSG Edwin Elliott, 24, Mattoon, IL; CPL Richard H Loring, 31, NY; and American Red Cross civilian Carolyn Chapin.
The remains representing the entire group were buried in a single casket on March 3, 2011 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC.
On May 10, 1944, the five were aboard a B-25C Mitchell bomber which took off from Ajaccio, Corsica, on a courier mission to Ghisonaccia, Corsica. They failed to reach the
destination and were officially reported missing on May 13, 1944. Two days later French police reported finding aircraft wreckage on the island's Mount Cagna. The US Army's Graves Registration Command visited the crash site in 1944 and reported remains were not recoverable. In May 1989, Corsican authorities notified US Army Memorial Affairs Activity-Europe that they had found wreckage of an American WWII-era aircraft and turned over human remains collected at the mountainous location. They sent a survey team to the site and determined the terrain was too rugged to support a recovery effort. In 2003 and 2004, two French nationals provided US authorities crew-related equipment recovered from the crash site. A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the location in September 2005 and recovered additional human remains as well as more crew-related equipment. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA, which matched that of some of the crewmembers' families, in the identification of the remains.
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced March 3, 2011 that the remains of four US Army servicemen and one civilian, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are:
CPT Lewis J Geerlings, 36, Freemont, MI; 1LT Ray Fletcher, 27, Westboro, MA; SSG Edwin Elliott, 24, Mattoon, IL; CPL Richard H Loring, 31, NY; and American Red Cross civilian Carolyn Chapin.
The remains representing the entire group were buried in a single casket on March 3, 2011 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC.
On May 10, 1944, the five were aboard a B-25C Mitchell bomber which took off from Ajaccio, Corsica, on a courier mission to Ghisonaccia, Corsica. They failed to reach the
destination and were officially reported missing on May 13, 1944. Two days later French police reported finding aircraft wreckage on the island's Mount Cagna. The US Army's Graves Registration Command visited the crash site in 1944 and reported remains were not recoverable. In May 1989, Corsican authorities notified US Army Memorial Affairs Activity-Europe that they had found wreckage of an American WWII-era aircraft and turned over human remains collected at the mountainous location. They sent a survey team to the site and determined the terrain was too rugged to support a recovery effort. In 2003 and 2004, two French nationals provided US authorities crew-related equipment recovered from the crash site. A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the location in September 2005 and recovered additional human remains as well as more crew-related equipment. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA, which matched that of some of the crewmembers' families, in the identification of the remains.
