TO THE CALM MOTHER EARTHS WAITING BREST
DUTY DONE LIKE THE SUN GOING WEST
Posted on 08/14/2008 2:49:06 PM PDT by Dubya
Missing WWII Pilot Is Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today 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.
He is 2nd Lt. Howard C. Enoch Jr., U.S. Army Air Forces, of Marion, Ky. He will be buried on Sep. 22 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the Army met with Enoch’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 March 19, 1945, Enoch was the pilot of a P-51D Mustang that crashed while engaging enemy aircraft about 20 miles east of Leipzig, near the village of Doberschütz, Germany. His remains were not recovered at the time, and Soviet occupation of eastern Germany precluded his recovery immediately after the war.
In 2004, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveyed a possible P-51 crash site near Doberschütz. The team found aircraft wreckage. In 2006, another JPAC team excavated the site and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage.
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 Enoch’s remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420.
God rest Lt. Enoch. And give comfort to his family.
bump
Salute
Welcome home after all these years.
Prayers of comfort for the family.
http://www.courier- journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080814/NEWS01/808140423
Remains are of Ky. WWII veteran
Son, 63, is planning funeral service for father he never knew
By Brett Barrouquere • Associated Press • August 14, 2008
Howard “Cliff” Enoch Jr. disappeared over what would become East Germany near the end of World War II, three months before his only son was born.
Six decades later, that son, Howard Enoch III, is getting to know his father while planning a funeral and memorial service for him.
“For 63 years, I had no reason to believe I would ever find out what happened to my father,” Enoch said. “It’s been remarkable.”
The Department of Defense announced yesterday that it had identified the remains of 2nd Lt. Howard Clifton Enoch Jr. of Marion, Ky. His burial is scheduled for Sept. 22 at Arlington National Cemetery, and a memorial service is being planned for Western Kentucky in October.
Lt. Enoch was a 20-year-old pilot of a P-51D Mustang, a long-range, single- seat fighter aircraft, that was shot down near the village of Doberschutz, Germany, on March 19, 1945. His remains were not immediately recovered, and the crash site fell behind Soviet lines when the war ended in May 1945.
His son grew up in Marion, about 66 miles east of Metropolis, Ill. His mother remarried, and he was eventually told about his father’s disappearance.
“He had never been there my entire life,” Enoch said. “I virtually had no hope of ever knowing what happened to my dad.”
Enoch, 63, went to the University of Kentucky, then later to Boston College to get a Ph.D. He now lives in Framingham, Mass., and directs The E. Paul Robsham Jr. Theater Arts Center.
In 2007 he got a call from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, the military’s cold case detectives, asking him to attend a meeting in Hartford, Conn., of families with relatives who went missing in World War II. After the meeting, members of the command pulled Enoch aside.
The military representatives had news: The remains of his father had been found in 2006 and initially identified in 2007. Officials said the ID was confirmed this year using DNA submitted by relatives of Lt. Enoch’s mother to a missing soldiers’ database.
A German researcher, Hans-Guenther Ploes, who searches for historic crash sites, found the spot where the plane crashed and notified the Department of Defense. The military said it sent a recovery crew to Germany, where it found the remains.
“It’s a tremendous amount of information,” Enoch said. “I wouldn’t say I’ve processed it. I think I’m still a little shell-shocked by it all.”
Since then Enoch has been busy making arrangements to bury the father he never knew and trying to explain all the commotion to his two daughters, ages 8 and 6.
“I think they kind of grasp what is going on,” Enoch said.
The process also brought him in touch with relatives he never knew.
One of them is R.C. Hamilton of Marion, his father’s second cousin.
“He was a fine young fellow,” Hamilton, now 82, said in a telephone interview.
Hamilton and the elder Enoch played together as children, and both ended up serving in the Army in Europe near the end of World War II. Hamilton thought his cousin would never be found.
“I don’t know that the military even looked for him,” Hamilton said. “I guess they figured he was gone and that’s about it.”
Now that Enoch’s remains have been found, his son is trying to make sure the military honors its own. Gov. Steve Beshear ordered flags lowered on Sept. 22 in tribute to the fallen airman.
For a son who never knew his father, it’s one more step in the right direction.
“I’m just so proud of him and what he did for his country,” Enoch said. “Anything I can do to see he gets the honors he deserves, that’s what I’m working for.”
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