Frozen WWII airman identified

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/03/airman.identified/ ^

[lunarbicep]

The U.S. military has identified the body of a World War II airman that climbers found in October at the bottom of a glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Family members said they learned this week that the man was 22-year-old Army Air Corps cadet Leo Mustonen, who died in a 1942 plane crash.

Mustonen joined the Army during his senior year in high school in Brainerd, Minnesota, and was in training to become a navigator when he was reported missing on November 18, 1942.

Mustonen was son of Finnish immigrants. He was one of four cadets aboard a training flight that crashed in the Sierra Nevada mountains east of Fresno.

The National Park Service has said it is considering whether to launch a new search in the spring for the remains of the other three men, pilot Lt. Bill Gamber, and navigator trainees Glenn Munn and Melvin Mortensen.

A Defense Department official called the Mustonen family on Wednesday and confirmed that the identity of the body found in October, relatives said.

"I felt in my heart all along that it was him," said Mustonen's niece Leane Mustonen Ross. "I've even made funeral arrangements and everything."

The family plans to have Mustonen's remains interred along with his parents in Brainerd, about 130 miles north of Minneapolis, she said.

"It's filling a pain and bringing it all together," another of Mustonen's nieces, Ona Lea Mustonen. "To know how someone died and what happened to them stops the question mark."

[exnavy]

RIP soldier.

[mcg2000]

closure

[lunarbicep]

Leo Mustonen, 22, was one of three cadets that vanished during a routine flight in 1942.

[oxcart]

Thanks for posting this. Thank God that the family now knows what happend. RIP

[leadpenny]

Related thread from October:

Frozen Airman May Have Been From St. C Area

[Rudder]

thanks for the heads up!

It appears they're still looking for Munn.

[leadpenny]

fyi

[DJ MacWoW]

Thanks for the ping. I hope they do search for the others.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LeadPenny.

Indcons?

[indcons]

Thank you for the ping, SunkenCiv.

To all: please ping me to threads that are relevant to the MilHist list (and/or) please add the keyword "MilHist" to the appropriate thread. Thanks in advance.

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[nmh]

Well at least the family has closure and can properly bury him.

[Rakkasan1]

Brainerd missing airman ping

[righttackle44]

God bless these men. They did well.

(I have not served. My tagline honors my son and my cousin.)

[de Buillion]

Thanks for the post, and the ping!