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CBS News
7 hours ago
- CBS News
U.S. airman killed on mountain with 10 other soldiers during Vietnam War accounted for 57 years later
An American airman who was killed after being trapped on a mountain with his unit during the Vietnam War has been accounted for nearly 60 years after his death, military officials said Monday. U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Willis R. Hall was assigned to Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radio site on a remote mountain peak in Laos, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. There were 18 other men assigned to the site. On March 11, 1968, the location was attacked by Japanese commandos, marking the start of a major offensive by communist Vietnamese forces in Laos, which was a neutral country at that time, according to newspaper clippings shared by the DPAA. The unit had to evacuate to a narrow ledge of the 5,600-foot mountain. A few hours later, an A-1 Skyraider aircraft was able to provide cover for a rescue operation. U.S. helicopters managed to rescue eight of the men and travel to a base in Thailand. One of the rescued men died while en route to the base, according to a newspaper clipping. Hall and 10 other American soldiers were killed, and their bodies were unable to be recovered, officials said. Hall, a native of of Broward County, Florida, was 40 years old at the time of his death and was survived by his wife Mary, according to newspaper clippings. His name has been engraved on the Courts of the Missing at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, and on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., the DPAA said. In 1994, a joint recovery operation by the U.S. and Laos failed to find any of the 11 servicemembers' remains, but nine years later, a second operation found one set of remains. A 2005 newspaper clipping said that to find the remains, U.S. investigators spoke to Vietnamese commandos who had been involved in the attack. The commandos showed the investigators where they had thrown the bodies of the dead servicemembers off the mountain. Investigators threw dummies from those sites, and used a video camera mounted on a helicopter to see where they landed. In 2023, DPAA personnel and partner organization members discovered unexploded ordnance, incident-related materials and possible material evidence and bones near another site on the mountain. Those remains were found to be those of a second technician who died during the attack. Joint recovery teams returned to the mountain earlier this year. Across two operations, the teams found possible human remains and other evidence. Those remains were taken to the DPAA Laboratory. At the laboratory, DPAA scientists used anthropological analysis and DNA analysis to study the remains. They also used material evidence found at the site to identify the remains as Hall's. Hall's family was briefed on his identification in last month. A rosette will be placed on his name on the Courts of the Missing and at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to show that he has been accounted for. Hall is set to be buried in Altoona, Kansas in September.
CBS News
6 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Missing World War II airman's Zippo lighter reunited with family after 80 years
Eighty years after a U.S. military airman went missing in World War II, his family received a token to remember him by: a Zippo lighter, inscribed with "Musashe 1943" and parts of the service number once assigned to its owner, Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Michael Musashe. The lighter came into the family's possession after one of the airman's relatives spotted it in a Facebook post about a year ago, the sergeant's nephew, Vince Musashe, told the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense tasked with finding and identifying service members who were either missing in action or prisoners of war during past conflicts. In the post, shared in 2019 by a Facebook group called the "Great Lakes Lighter Club," a Swiss man who collected lighters showed an installment in his collection. It was the Zippo lighter with Musashe's last name and 27 hash marks that military historians believe represented the airman's 27 missions during the war. They suggested the lighter may have been recovered from Musashe's remains or from the wreckage of his aircraft, which was attacked in 1944, according to DPAA. Musashe was last seen on April 19 of that year, when he was among a group of American airmen dispatched to bomb part of Berlin. German fire damaged his aircraft, which changed course and accidentally ended up passing over then-occupied Denmark, where the pilot ordered crew members including Musashe to bail out. Exactly how many of the 10 crew members actually exited the aircraft in parachutes has been debated. Officials say no remains or records related to the deaths of Musashe or one other crew member were ever found, and a finding of death was issued to Musashe's family on Nov. 7, 1945. DPAA historians helped the family locate the Zippo lighter's new owner after seeing that Facebook post. They contacted the man, Swiss army veteran Rolf Gerster, who eventually turned it over to them. "He felt strongly that the lighter belonged with our family and was happy to be part of bringing a part of my uncle home," said Vince Musashe, according to DPAA. "He was extremely helpful in arranging the transfer, telling me the best way to make sure it got to the United States safe and sound. He tracked the shipment and kept me informed at each stage." The deceased airman's nephew told DPAA he brought the Zippo to his uncle's sister, 95-year-old Virginia Zoller, who last saw her brother when she was in 7th grade. "She clutched the lighter as if she was hugging her brother," said Vince Musashe. "After 81 years, she did what she said she would do when he came home. She kissed the lighter. She was just so happy that she lived to see this."
San Francisco Chronicle
12-07-2025
- General
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Carrying the torch': WWII soldier who died in prison camp in Philippines identified, buried in S.F.
During a routine visit to his parents' home in San Jose this past November, Eric Ulrich began to tackle a mound of mail, boxes and old packages that had accumulated over the past few weeks. As he sorted through a pile stacked high of envelopes and loose paper, Ulrich came across a FedEx package labeled with a return address from Fort Knox, Ky. 'U.S. Army,' read the envelope addressed to his father Gerald, Ulrich recalled. Confused as to why his 89-year-old father was receiving mail from the Army, Ulrich opened the package. Inside was a message from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or the DPAA — the federal agency tasked with recovering missing military personnel and prisoners of war. The letter would kick off an eight-month journey that culminated in an emotional ceremony Friday at the San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio. Cpl. Ernest Ulrich, a World War II soldier who died in the Philippines after being subjected to the brutal Bataan Death March, was finally laid to rest in the U.S. after 80 years of being labeled 'Unknown.' For several weeks, the DPAA had been trying to notify Ulrich's father that recent dental and DNA testing had identified the remains of an unknown World War II soldier as belonging to Cpl. Ulrich — the half-brother of Ulrich's paternal grandfather, or his father's uncle. 'It was pretty incredible,' Ulrich told the Chronicle, but 'I had no idea who this person was.' No one had ever mentioned him, not even his grandfather — a World War I veteran who would often tell his grandchildren stories far beyond their years. When Ulrich reached out to the DPAA phone number listed at the bottom of the letter, he learned that the path to his great uncle's identification involved several burials and subsequent exhumations, spanned two countries separated by the Pacific Ocean and took over 80 years. Cpl. Ulrich, who was from China, Texas, served in the medical department of the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment during World War II, the DPAA told Ulrich (and later shared in a news release). After enlisting in March 1941, Cpl. Ulrich was transported with the rest of the 200th to the Philippines in October. When Japanese forces invaded the islands that December, the regiment provided ground support through several months of intense combat. Fighting continued until the United States surrendered the Bataan peninsula and Corregidor Island in the late spring of 1942. Japanese forces captured thousands of American and Filipino troops, including Cpl. Ulrich, as prisoners of war and subjected them to the 65-mile Bataan Death March, along with 78,000 others, toward the Cabanatuan POW Camp, DPAA officials said. Cpl. Ulrich, then 26, was admitted to the camp hospital for pellagra and beriberi — illnesses caused by vitamin deficiencies — as well as dysentery in September 1942, according to camp records cited by the DPAA in documents provided by Ulrich. He died of his illnesses on Nov. 22, 1942, according to camp records and other historical evidence. Cpl. Ulrich was buried in the camp's Common Grave 807, alongside several other servicemen. According to federal estimates, the camp saw upwards of 800 deaths per month and over 2,700 prisoners of war were buried in the camp cemeteries by 1945, when troops liberated the camp. After the war, American personnel relocated Cpl. Ulrich's remains from the Cabanatuan graves to the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, where they were considered unidentifiable and labeled 'Unknown,' federal officials say. According to DPAA documents provided by Ulrich, federal investigators in the mid-1940s identified three service members from the same grave, but were unable to identify any others due to 'inconclusive' dental records and forensics. At the time, an expert anthropologist said the remains were 'jumbled beyond belief' and in 'such a state of deterioration that evidence on which identification depends had been largely obliterated.' At the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 the Department of Defense designated an agency to search for all missing personnel and prisoners of war. At its launch, the DPAA's predecessor estimated that nearly 73,700 American soldiers who fought in World War II were missing. Today, only about 1,800 of those missing soldiers, or roughly 2.4%, are accounted for. After finding sufficient evidence to exhume several unresolved cases in August 2014, DPAA excavated the remains of nine unknown soldiers associated with Common Grave 807 in late 2018, agency officials said. The remains were transported to the agency's testing site in Hawaii. The agency's scientists identified Cpl. Ulrich's remains by using dental, anthropological and historical evidence, while personnel from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner system confirmed the results by using Y-chromosome DNA analysis, officials said. Ulrich noted that the DPAA used a DNA sample from Cpl. Ulrich's nephew, Boyce Ulrich, who has since passed away after providing the sample. Of the 999 service members from Camp Cabanatuan who were originally deemed missing, only 117, or just under 12%, have been accounted for, according to federal estimates. Cpl. Ulrich's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Tuesday, according to a Facebook post from Honoring Our Fallen, a nonprofit aiming to support military families. Personnel performed military honors at Oakland International Airport upon his arrival. The family knows little about their long-lost uncle. They have no photographs and merely one faded memory of him. Ulrich's father told him he recalled visiting Cpl. Ulrich on Angel Island before the regiment left for the Pacific Theatre; at the time, his father was less than five years old, and didn't remember anything about his uncle. After the war ended, all the family knew was that Cpl. Ulrich died during the Bataan Death March, Ulrich said. 'I didn't think I would have cried for a great uncle who I didn't know, who died in 1942,' Eric Ulrich said, describing Cpl. Ulrich's arrival ceremony. 'But with everybody standing around, everybody thinking about the historical moment — there are thousands of people that are never going to have this moment.' Since hearing the details of his great uncle's story, Ulrich's goal has been 'to do the right thing for this gentleman that did his service to his country,' he said. 'My role is to try to facilitate and see this through.' Wanting to learn more about his newly found relative, Ulrich looked further into the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment and came across a book, titled 'Beyond Courage: One Regiment Against Japan, 1941-1945,' which detailed the experiences of a small group within the 200th regiment via first-hand accounts and archival research. Ulrich was particularly drawn to a moment in the book when the ship carrying the 200th passes under the Golden Gate Bridge, prompting one soldier to tell another that 'some of us won't see that bridge again.' The Ulrich family originally wished to bury Cpl. Ulrich next to his half-brother in Palo Alto, or in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. But in telling the story of the 200th and the Golden Gate Bridge, the family secured a resting place at the San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. The coveted resting place, reserved for military veterans and their spouses, is completely full, according to Greg Silva, funeral director and general manager of Twin Chapels Mortuary, Cpl. Ulrich's funeral home. All of its burial spots are either occupied or reserved for spouses. But a very select few of the reserved spots can sometimes become vacant due to spouses changing their plans or other extraordinary circumstances, Silva explained. 'We got lucky,' he noted. 'To have him return back to San Francisco to be buried at the Presidio in the last place he saw before he left America (is) amazing,' Ulrich said, 'It's a celebration of this man who has paid his dues.' Under a partly sunny sky Friday, with the Golden Gate Bridge peaking through the fog, Cpl. Ulrich's remains arrived in the Presidio, just a couple miles away from where he was over 80 years ago. Surrounded by a new generation of family members, almost all of whom were born after he passed, Cpl. Ulrich received a full military honors ceremony that included a playing of military taps, a six-gun salute and an emotional flag-folding ceremony. For Ulrich's wife, Marti, the celebration was the 'feel-good, happy ending' to a long journey of 'picking up the pieces and carrying the torch.' 'This whole process has been something else,' Marti Ulrich said at the ceremony. 'To see it finally come full circle — the pieces of the puzzle just kept falling into place.' One war and 80 years later, Cpl. Ulrich was laid into the ground on the northern side of the cemetery, with a picture-perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Remains of Ohio soldier, who died as WWII POW, found and being brought home
**Related Video Above: Remains of Cleveland WWII Airman was brought home after 80 years last year ELMORE, Ohio (WJW) — A northern Ohio man who died as a prisoner of war while fighting in WWII is finally being laid to rest in his hometown this summer, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said Friday. Remains of Soldier killed in WWII return to Freeport, Ohio and interred with full military honors U.S. Army Sgt. Howard Hasselkus, who was 24 years old at the time of his death, was reportedly accounted for in September 2024 but it was only recently that his family received a 'full briefing' from the government agency. Now his story is being released to the public. When Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in late 1941, Hasselkus was fighting with the 192nd Tank Battalion. By May of 1942, thousands of U.S. and Filipino military members were taken as prisoners of war following the surrender of Bataan, with Hasselkus being one of them. Hasselkus died Nov. 22, 1942, and was buried at Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in a common grave, according to camp records, the DPAA said. The American Graves Registration Service diligently worked to identify soldiers remains following the war, but Hasselkus was never found. 4 finally going home after WWII bomber crash left 11 dead and 'non-recoverable' Then in 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA scientists began looking into the remains still unidentified. Using anthropological, dental and DNA analysis, the team was able to find Hasselkus. 'Today, Hasselkus is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines,' the agency said in a statement. 'A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.' Hasselkus is being buried in Elmore, Ohio, in August. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Savannah man and World War II airman has been accounted for
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – Former U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, Georgia, was accounted for today by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Lt. Hayes was killed during World War II. According to information released by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, in June 1944, Hymes was assigned to the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force, in the European Theater. On June 20, Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, went missing in action when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark after colliding with another B-24 in the same formation. The pilot and co-pilot of Hymes' aircraft were able to bail out and survived, but all evidence points to the rest of the crew being killed in the crash. The U.S. War Department issued a Finding of Death for Hymes on June 21, 1945. In early 1948, the American Graves Registration Command, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, investigated the crash, but was unable to find any of the missing crewmen. Over the next couple of years, the AGRC also assessed unidentified remains that washed ashore in the area where Hymes' aircraft crashed, but were not able to identify any of the crew. Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, Danish divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number that partially matched the guns on Hymes' aircraft was recovered. In August 2021, after the Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance, DPAA partner University of Delaware, along with the Royal Danish Navy, returned to conduct an underwater survey. The survey found possible human remains as well as enough evidence to recommend the site for an archaeological excavation. From Sept. 21, 2022 to June 9, 2024, DPAA primary partner Trident Archäologie, along with Wessex Archaeology and volunteers from Project Recover, and with stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum, returned to the site to conduct further operations, during which they found further material evidence and possible remains. That evidence was also accessioned into the DPAA laboratory. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
