As a followup to yesterday's post on the discovery of American World War II letters in Belgium, there is this article in yesterday's Sioux City Journal.
Staff Sgt. Walter Knudsen, a World War II B-24 gunnery instructor from Sioux City was praised as an American hero at a graveside ceremony with full military honors Saturday at Memorial Park Cemetery.
Knudsen was killed along with eight of his crew members when his B-24D bomber crashed southwest of Lae, New Guinea, during World War II 61 years ago.
In February 2002 a New Guinea villager found Knudsen's lone dog tag which led to the excavation of the plane in January 2003 and the identification of eight of the nine crew members' bodies in May 2005.
On Sept. 23, 1944, Knudsen received secret orders to go to Nadzab airdrome in New Guinea to be part of the new 360th Air Service Group, Far East Air Forces. The Far East Forces Combat Replacement Training Center at Nadzab provided training in Southwest Pacific warfare, including a five-week B-24 course Knudsen taught for heavy bomber crews. By the age of 20, Knudsen was already a skilled gunnery instructor, who was training 160 men for 10 hours a day in the use of the .50-caliber Browning machine gun used on B-24s.
On the morning of Oct. 9, 1944, Knudsen took off on a training flight from Nadzab along with a crew of eight. He had been in New Guinea just 20 days when his B-24D Liberator, "Mr. Five By Five," crashed.
The plane vanished that morning when it crashed nose first into a tri-canopy area of the cloud-covered mountainside 11 miles southwest of Lae. The plane burst into flames upon impact. The raging fire melted much of the plane, leaving only its four engines, wings, tail and a portion of the fuselage. Although the area where the plane crashed was searched, the wreckage, which was covered by dense jungle, remained hidden.
Family members said they never imagined that the selfless actions of a New Guinea villager in February 2002 would bring them closure.
While traversing the rugged mountain terrain and countryside, the villager found Knudsen's dog tag hidden in the dense tropical vegetation near the crash site. The villager traveled about 200 miles to Port Moresby to return Knudsen's dog tag to the U.S. Embassy, which in turn contacted the U.S. Army. The lone dog tag led to the plane's excavation in January 2003.
I'm a sap for this sort of story. The selflessness of a villager to travel 200 miles to deliver dogtags to the embassy is impressive. He is the one who allowed these war heroes to receive the honor they deserve.
Read the whole article. It's beautifully written. (Bring a hanky.)
No comments:
Post a Comment