Today at Spokane's Holy Cross Cemetary, an airmen was laid to rest 78 years after his C-47 was shot down during Operattion
Market Garden.At the graveside funeral service, a C-47 and KC-135 performed a fly-by.
Later, an event was held at the hangar of the Historic Flight Foundation which provided the C-47.*
From the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency website:
Second Lieutenant Pershing Shauvin entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Washington and served with the 95th Troop Carrier Squadron, 440th Troop Carrier Group. On September 17, 1944, he piloted a C-47 Skytrain (Serial Number 42-100981) with a crew of five and ten pathfinder paratroopers that took off from Chalgrove, England, as part of Operation MARKET GARDEN. The pathfinders were assigned to drop behind enemy lines in the Netherlands to locate drop zones for the main body of paratroopers. The C-47 was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Belgium, causing it to crash. Six members of the aircraft's crew bailed out before it went down, but the remaining nine men, including 2LT Pershing, were killed in the crash. 2LT Shauvin's remains were not identified or recovered immediately following the incident. In 2021, a set of unidentified remains that had been recovered from a crash site associated with 2LT Shauvin's aircraft were accessioned into the DPAA laboratory for identification. This set of remains were eventually identified as those of 2LT Shauvin.
https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpa ... 000XdkaEACCbsnews.com article:
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Tuesday that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Eugene P. Shauvin, 25, of Spokane, Washington, was accounted for earlier this month.
On September 17, 1944, Shauvin was piloting a C-47 Skytrain aircraft that was shot down over Belgium, while flying to the Netherlands to drop 11 paratroopers. Only six paratroopers successfully bailed out. The four-person crew, including Shauvin, and the other five paratroopers were killed when the plane crashed near the village of Retie.
By October 1951, everyone from the plane had been identified and accounted for except for Shauvin, who was declared non-recoverable.
In 1999, officials said Shauvin's daughter, Linda, contacted the U.S. Army with evidence that her father's remains might still be found at the crash site. In 2003, a U.S. recovery team located the cockpit, but didn't find Shauvin, and therefore recommended no further excavation.
In 2016, Linda Shauvin pushed the DPAA to reconsider the decision not to excavate further. After assessing the 2003 reports, officials determined there was sufficient evidence to do additional excavation work at the crash site.
Officials say it took until 2019 to gain access and permits and mitigate environmental challenges at the site, before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the excavation yet again.
Finally, in 2021, the site was fully excavated.
"Bolstered by unwavering support from Shauvin's family, Belgian authorities, and the landowners and local community at Retie, a DPAA recovery team fully excavated the site in April and May 2021, and found human remains and possible life support equipment," officials said.
Eugene Shauvin was finally identified through DNA and anthropological analysis, officials said Tuesday.
Linda Shauvin, who was just three years old when her father left for the war and never came back, told WVIR-TV last year that she had taken trips to the crash site and made friends in Belgium.
"I've always wondered more about my father," she told the station. "I've been so curious about him all of my life."
Officials said Eugene Shauvin will be buried this July in his hometown of Spokane. (End of CBS report).
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*The Spokane-based Historic Flight Foundation was going to do the fly-by with their DC-3 N877MG ex-C-47B 43-26340. However when it developed technical issues, John Sessions reached out to the Museum of Mountain Flying in Missoula, Montana to bring their DC-3
NC24320 ex 43-15731 to perform the duty.
"Miss Montana", a name bestowed on the ex-Johnson Air Service Smoke jumper aircraft, then stood in for the HFF DC-3 for the Foundation's monthly "Fly Day" ride flight.
I have been up in the VIP-configured HFF aircraft twice, but I really wanted to fly in a military configured C-47 like my father flew.
I really enjoyed the flight, when moving around the cabin, I kept my balance in the warm turbulent air by lightly holding onto the parachute static line.
Also, NC24320 is historic in its own right, being the plane that the ill-fated smoke jumper crew parachuted from during the tragic 1949 Mann Gulch fire.
See author Norman Maclean's award winning book
Young Men and Fire for details on that event.
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