US team in India to trace missing WW II airmen
March 18th, 2008 - 9:59 pm ICT by admin ( 2 comments )
New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) A US military team will be here Wednesday to discuss a joint operation with India to search for US airmen who went missing in plane crashes over Indian territory during World War II. Rear Admiral Donna L. Crisp, commander of Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action, Accounting Command (JPAC), will meet Indian officials and discuss a joint operation to trace the missing American servicemen from World War II, official sources said.
The two sides are likely to announce an expedition to trace the missing American airmen, the sources said.
According to the US Department of Defence, more than 500 US aircraft and 1,200 crewmembers went missing in the China-Burma-India theatre during World War II. At least 416 Americans went missing in India alone.
The JPAC will organise DNA tests on the bones if the remains of the deceased servicemen are traced and match them with available records.
Those who get identified will be entitled to a burial with a military honour guard at a National Cemetery in the US.
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Tags: american airmen, american servicemen, available records, china burma india, department of defence, dna tests, honour guard, india theatre, indian officials, indian territory, jpac, military honour, military team, missing in action, national cemetery, plane crashes, prisoner of war, rear admiral, us department of defence, world war ii
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 am
I, along with all the other relatives of the “Hot as Hell” crew - Capt. William Swanson, 1st Lt. Irwin Zaetz, 1st Lt. Robert Eugene Oxford, Flight Officer Sheldon Chambers, Staff Sgt. Charles Ginn, Staff Sgt. Harry Queen, Sgt. James Hinson, and Sgt. Alfred Gerrans, Jr. - am most grateful to the Indian and American Governments for this landmark agreement permitting American recovery teams into India to recover the remains of American airmen lost during World War II. We all hope that these joint recovery operations will proceed with the utmost safety. We also recognize that this achievement could not have been reached without the leadership of several key individuals, namely, Lisa Phillips of the organization World War II Families for Recovery of the Missing, US Pacific Command chief Admiral Timothy J. Keating, US Ambassador to India David Mulford, India’s Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen, the entire Vermont congressional delegation, Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman, Indian Defense Secretary Vijay Singh, Rear Admiral Donna L. Crisp, the leaders of Arunachal Pradesh, and members of the American and Indian media. We hope that this agreement signals a renewed focus on World War II MIA recovery efforts worldwide. We also look forward in the near future to official recognition of the efforts of Mr. Clayton Kuhles in locating these crash sites in South Asia.
Gary Zaetz,
Nephew of 1ST Lt. Irwin Zaetz, navigator of the “Hot as Hell”, discovered December 7, 2006 in Arunachal Pradesh
December 29th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Indian BJP opposition leader Sushma Swaraj is reported by several major Indian publications to have said, after meeting with President Obama, that the US canceled joint US-Indian exercises in Arunachal Pradesh to placate the Chinese. It is highly likely that these canceled exercises were the recovery operations planned to recover the remains of my uncle and the rest of the crew of the American World War II aircraft “Hot as Hell”, found by Clayton Kuhles and Oken Tayeng in 2006. The Obama Administration should be ashamed for this act of kowtowing to Chinese intimidation. If the UPA coalition had any part in persuading the Obama Administration to make this cowardly decision, which also seems likely, then Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and her government share in this shame. Thanks go to Ms. Swaraj and the BJP for bringing these embarrassing facts to light.