On Friday, five members of the Wiemerslage family were met at Midway Airport by members of the River Grove American Legion, Rolling Thunder and the Patriot Guard Riders and the U.S. Army Honor Guard.
Francis, called Frankie by his family, had a sister and two brothers. His brother Roland passed away in 2019 at the age of 84 and searched for his brother most of his life and gave a DNA sample to assist in recovery efforts shortly before he died.
One of his last words to his family before he died was "Don't forget about Frankie."
After the war, the American Graves Registration Command was in charge of recovering remains of fallen service members in Europe. Between 1947 and 1948, the remains of all the airmen who died in the B-17 crash, except for Wiemerslage were found and identified.
Because there was no evidence that he was a prisoner of war, a finding of death was issued a year after the crash. His name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Hombourg, Belgium, along with the others still missing from World War II.
GreGen
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