ARLINGTON, Va. — Even for Arlington National Cemetery, Wednesday’s burial service was extraordinary: remains from nine World War II airmen shot down and killed after a successful bombing run in Papua New Guinea in 1943. The remains, excavated from the crash site in 2001, were in a single casket because most of them could not be conclusively linked to any one airman, despite extensive testing by the Army.
Wednesday’s burial brings a close to the remarkable story of the Naughty but Nice, a B-17 Flying Fortress that was shot down in 1943 and earned its nickname from a painting of a scantily clad woman on its side. Nine of the 10 airmen on board were killed and buried in unmarked graves. The lone survivor, Lt. Jose Holguin, was taken as a Japanese prisoner of war but made it his mission after the war to find his lost colleagues.
“I don’t want to call it survivor’s guilt. I would call it a survivor’s mission,” said Holguin’s son, Curt Holguin, who attended Wednesday’s service. “He returned home and they didn’t. His mission became to get them home.” The elder Holguin traveled back to Papua New Guinea several times in the 1980s and found parts of the plane. In 1985, the Army exhumed remains that had been buried as “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu after they were recovered from Papua New Guinea after the war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...at-arlington/2011/09/20/gIQAvOCjjK_story.html
Wednesday’s burial brings a close to the remarkable story of the Naughty but Nice, a B-17 Flying Fortress that was shot down in 1943 and earned its nickname from a painting of a scantily clad woman on its side. Nine of the 10 airmen on board were killed and buried in unmarked graves. The lone survivor, Lt. Jose Holguin, was taken as a Japanese prisoner of war but made it his mission after the war to find his lost colleagues.
“I don’t want to call it survivor’s guilt. I would call it a survivor’s mission,” said Holguin’s son, Curt Holguin, who attended Wednesday’s service. “He returned home and they didn’t. His mission became to get them home.” The elder Holguin traveled back to Papua New Guinea several times in the 1980s and found parts of the plane. In 1985, the Army exhumed remains that had been buried as “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu after they were recovered from Papua New Guinea after the war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...at-arlington/2011/09/20/gIQAvOCjjK_story.html
