Airman missing from World War II identified

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WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced Sept. 5 that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Second Lt. Harold E. Hoskin of the Army Air Forces from Houlton, Maine, will be buried Sept. 7 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

Representatives from the Army met with Lieutenant Hoskin's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.

On Dec. 21, 1943, Lieutenant Hoskin was one of five crewmen on board a B-24D on a cold-weather test mission that departed Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska. The aircraft never returned to base and it was not located in subsequent search attempts.

The following March, one of the crewmen, 1st Lt. Leon Crane, arrived at Ladd Field after spending more than two months in the Alaska wilderness. He said that the plane had crashed after it lost an engine, and Lieutenant Crane and another crewmember, Master Sgt. Richard L. Pompeo, parachuted from the aircraft before it crashed. Lieutenant Crane did not know what happened to Sergeant Pompeo after they bailed out.

In October 1944, Crane assisted a recovery team in locating the crash. They recovered the remains of two of the crewmen, 1st Lt. James B. Sibert and Staff Sgt. Ralph S. Wenz. Lieutenant Hoskin's remains were not found and it was concluded that he probably parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed.

In 2004, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command received information from a National Park Service Historian regarding a possible World War II crash site in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alaska. The historian turned over ashes believed to be the cremated remains of the crew, however, it was determined they contained no human remains. In 2006, a JPAC team excavated the site and recovered human remains and other non-biological material, including items worn by Army officers during World War II.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Lieutenant Hoskin's remains.

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