In 1949, Captain Henry White and S.Sgt. Thomas Meek were declared "non-recoverable," and their names were etched on the Tablets of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
On a separate recovery mission in Vanuatu in 2010, personnel from the military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command snapped aerial photos of Mavea Island. A year later, a team was on the ground interviewing residents, including Willy's son, who was a child at the time of the crash.
When excavation began in August 2012, the team found some bones along with old U.S. and Australian coins, White's rank insignia and Meeks ID card. They concluded they had enough evidence that the Marines had been found.
Too bad there was no mention of whether any relatives were found. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
Showing posts with label Mavea Island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mavea Island. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Missing Marines Laid to Rest-- Part 2
Their plane was designated bureau number 06969, a line of planes that sank many Japanese vessels during the war. The crash occurred on a coral cliff less than two miles from the runway. A rescue party found its burnt wreckage and collected what they could of Captain White and S.Sgt. Meek, burying the remains in a nearby ravine, according to a 2012 report on the crash.
Four years later, after the war, a group of the Army's 604th Quartermaster Graves Company went to Mavea Island to investigate the crash, and also that of 2nd Lt. Bernard Jensen, whose aircraft had no identifying bureau number. They met two islanders known as Willy and Billy and "...Billy led the search party to an area of thick jungle and described what he saw there on the day of [Jensen's] crash. He explained to the [soldiers] that he and the Marine search party found only the pilot's body approximately 100 feet from the airplane.
After a search of the crash site for any remaining evidence, the search team left Mavea Island without finding the BuNu 06969 crash site."
If At First You Don't Succeed.... More to Come Tomorrow. --GreGen
Four years later, after the war, a group of the Army's 604th Quartermaster Graves Company went to Mavea Island to investigate the crash, and also that of 2nd Lt. Bernard Jensen, whose aircraft had no identifying bureau number. They met two islanders known as Willy and Billy and "...Billy led the search party to an area of thick jungle and described what he saw there on the day of [Jensen's] crash. He explained to the [soldiers] that he and the Marine search party found only the pilot's body approximately 100 feet from the airplane.
After a search of the crash site for any remaining evidence, the search team left Mavea Island without finding the BuNu 06969 crash site."
If At First You Don't Succeed.... More to Come Tomorrow. --GreGen
Missing Marines Laid to Rest-- Part 1
From the Oct. 28, 2013, Marine Corps Times by Andrew deGrandpre.
The remains of two Marines missing since World War II were laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 18th. Captain Henry White and Staff Sgt. Thomas Meek were in a SBD-4 Dauntless dive bomber that crashed July 21, 1943, on Mavea Island in the South Pacific about 1,100 miles from Australia's east coast. It is part of the Vanuata Chain.
The two Marines had taken off from Turtle Bay Airfield on the Espiritu Santo Island, a staging point for Allied operations against the Solomon Islands.. They were on a nighttime training mission when they went down about three minutes after takeoff.
The pilot, Henry White, 23, of Kansas City, Mo., and his gunner Meek, 19, of Lisbon, La., were assigned to a Marine scout bomber squadron. White had been commissioned a Marine officer in 1942, having come up through the Naval Reserve. Meek was the great grandson of noted American explorer Kit Carson.
Always Glad to Find Them. --GreGen
The remains of two Marines missing since World War II were laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 18th. Captain Henry White and Staff Sgt. Thomas Meek were in a SBD-4 Dauntless dive bomber that crashed July 21, 1943, on Mavea Island in the South Pacific about 1,100 miles from Australia's east coast. It is part of the Vanuata Chain.
The two Marines had taken off from Turtle Bay Airfield on the Espiritu Santo Island, a staging point for Allied operations against the Solomon Islands.. They were on a nighttime training mission when they went down about three minutes after takeoff.
The pilot, Henry White, 23, of Kansas City, Mo., and his gunner Meek, 19, of Lisbon, La., were assigned to a Marine scout bomber squadron. White had been commissioned a Marine officer in 1942, having come up through the Naval Reserve. Meek was the great grandson of noted American explorer Kit Carson.
Always Glad to Find Them. --GreGen
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