Rest in Peace Sir!
http://www.heartlandconnection.com/news ... 77ReUCorjAMore than 69 years after being shot down on a bombing mission over Germany during WWII, Staff Sgt. Robert “Bobby” E. Howard is returning home to Iowa.
Howard, a 21-year old Moulton, Iowa native serving with the 450th Bomber Squadron, 322nd Bomber Group, Medium, 9th Air Force, U.S. Army Air Corps, was last seen April 16, 1945 as his unit was conducting a bombing mission over northeast Germany. With the flight originating from Le Culot Airfield near Beauvechain, Belgium, the aircraft, a Martin B-26B “Marauder” on which Howard served as an engineer/gunner, was shot down and crashed near Wittenburg, Germany. Only one of the six crewmembers was able to parachute from the aircraft and was taken prisoner by German forces.
Howard and four other crewmembers from the Marauder were officially declared deceased but their remains were never recovered. In 2012, the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command - Central Identification Laboratory (JPAC) received information from German officials of human remains found within a burial site located close to the possible aircraft crash site in Mühlanger, near the city of Lutherstadt-Wittenberg. In July 2012, a JPAC recovery team recovered additional human remains at the site.
In 2014, JPAC’s Research and Analysis Group concluded a historical association drawn from Missing Air Crew Report #14463 and artifacts and human remains recovered at the excavation site. Mitochondrial DNA testing positively identified part of the remains as belonging to Howard.
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