THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412150361
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A23 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Nearly a year after their identities were tentatively established, the remains of three Air Force airmen whose B-29 bomber was shot down in the Korean War have been identified formally and turned over to relatives.
Funeral services for each are scheduled to be held Friday, said Sandra Krueger, whose cousin, Master Sgt. Robert Wilson Jones, was among the three whose remains were repatriated, with more than 100 others, by the North Korean army in late 1993.
This is only the second time since shortly after the war ended in July 1953 that the U.S. government has managed to positively identify returned remains. The first, announced in February, was Army Sgt. Frank M. Morales of Puerto Rico.
Krueger, of Dekalb, Texas, said in a phone interview Wednesday that Jones would be buried in Dekalb, his hometown, on Friday beside the graves of his mother and father.
``I'm just glad it's coming to closure,'' she said. ``It's really a relief.''
The two other members of the B-29 crew whose remains have been identified are Lt. George Aaron of New York City, who was the pilot, and 2nd Lt. Elmer T. Bullock of Penacook, N.H., the plane's radar observer. Jones was the flight engineer.
Alan Aaron of New York, a nephew of George Aaron, said he only learned of the formal identifications through Pat Dunton, president of the Korean-Cold War Family Association of the Missing. Dunton's father, Lt. James S. Wilson Jr., of Memphis, Tenn., was the navigator on the same B-29, which was shot down by a Soviet MiG fighter over the Yalu River on April 12, 1951.
Remains that the North Korean army said were those of Dunton's father were turned over to U.S. officials last December along with four others that the Koreans said were from the same B-29 crew. Wilson's dog tags were included.
Dunton said officials have told her their forensic analysis indicates that the remains associated with her father are, in fact, those of three different people and that they cannot be sorted out unless DNA analysis is used. She said the government has not made a decision whether it will use DNA analysis.
A fifth set of remains associated with the B-29 crew also requires DNA analysis, she said officials told her. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
An honor guard carries the remains of Korean War veteran Lt. Elmer
Bullock at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. The remains of three
missing fliers have been returned to their relatives.
by CNB