"WWII Pilot's remains found in glacier" Topic

Well, it's perhaps not as spectacular as Ötzi, but it might be a relief for the man's relatives, if any remain.

link

An astonishing figure of still 78.000 missing from WWII in that article, though I image many of those beiong sailors that went down with their ships.

It's incredible that most of the people that are listed as MIA are from WWII.

Landorl wrote: "It's incredible that most of the people that are listed as MIA are from WWII."

Not really. Those originally MIA from previous wars are legally 'Dead' (and thus no longer missing) once the 100th anniversaries of their births are reached. So, legally, there are no MIA's from WW1, the ACW, etc.

Another thing to remember is that MIA (often follwed by 'Presumed Dead') only means that no recognizable body was recovered. Thus most submarine crewmen, many surface sailors, and a fair number of aircrew are officially MIA, despite the fact that we 'know' they are dead – i.e., somebody saw the plane go down. For that matter, the guys in the Tomb of the Unknowns are officially MIA – except the original occupant, who is now 'Dead', having certainly been born before 1905.

I'm just glad they found the man. At least his relatives will have closure now and will have his remains to properly lay to rest.

Yeah- but wouldn't it be cool if it turns out the body had wildly inconsistant items on him that COULD NOT have been avialable in 1942, but were covered under layers of old ice in his pocket?

And the the ID of the man turned out to match someone that survived the war and died in a mysterious inductrial accident in 1983.

And that the autopsey of the corpse appears he had 2 livers and weird things in his brian stem?

I know, I am spending far too much time stuck at work….

Anyway, there are a few recent books on the whole MIA ID procedures. 'Safely Rest' is one. I'm blanking on the other right now but it follows one specific dig in SE asia.

One of the more interesting thgins is the Military labs ask certain relatives of wartime MIAs should place their DNA on file with them so it could be compared in the future to any discovered remains.

2 years ago friends of mine discovered the remains of two German paras in Normandy. Odd thing was, one of them was ID'd as haviung been buried in 1946 in a local German cemetary!. The German GRS folks were going to look into it, but were pretty casual figuring it was just a wartime records mistake.

Jgawne, the suggestion you make strongly resembles a short story I sold many years cago here in the Netherlands. :)

Rmaker, thanks for clearing up the point about the MIA's. It was totally new to me.