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63-year wait nears an end

HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii - The airman's possessions, laid out on a table in a military lab, offer a glimpse of America circa 1942: a fountain pen, a black plastic comb, three badly damaged address books, and 51 cents in dimes, nickels and pennies, dated 1920 to 1942.

A neatly handwritten note tucked into one of the address books reveals the words "all the girls know," but the rest is illegible.

Forensic scientists at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command are using these and other clues to help them identify a World War II airman whose remarkably well-preserved body was chipped out of a California glacier last month after two mountain climbers discovered his head and arm jutting out of the ice.

The airman is thought to have been one of four men aboard a navigational training flight that crashed after takeoff from a Sacramento airfield on Nov. 18, 1942.

The experts have spent the past few weeks examining his bones, taking DNA samples and studying his teeth to establish who he was and precisely how he died. "We want to be able to understand what happened to him fully," said Robert Mann, deputy scientific director of the lab identifying the remains. "And we also want to be able to answer whatever questions the family may have about "exactly what happened to my son, my brother."'

The POW/MIA Accounting Command has recovered and examined the remains of U.S. servicemen all around the world, but skeletons are usually all that is left. In this case, the deep cold preserved the airman's flesh and hair, as well as his clothing.

The military, of course, knows the names of the four men killed in the crash. And there is a partially visible name on a heavily corroded metal badge attached to the airman's U.S. Army Air Forces uniform. But the forensic experts do not want to jump conclusions, and want to identify him with scientific certainty. (They will not disclose what the badge says.)

So far they have determined the airman was in his early 20s and stood between 5-foot-9 and 6-2. He had light brown or sandy blond hair. X-rays showed many of his bones were broken. He wore an unopened parachute, a thermal undershirt under his uniform and a sweater.

The discovery of the airman's body Oct. 16 in the Sierra Nevada created a sensation. Families of the men who perished on the flight called the Fresno County Coroner's Office to see if he was their lost loved one.

Jeanne Pyle, 85, of St. Clairsville, Ohio, said she believes the airman could be her brother, Cadet Ernest Munn, whom she remembers as a handsome, 6-foot-4 man with blond hair and blue eyes. If the experts confirm her suspicion, it will solve a painful mystery that has lasted for 63 years, she said.

"It would be exciting, in a sad way," said Pyle, who last saw her brother at a party on his 21st birthday, days before he enlisted. "We've been living with an empty feeling for so long."

The AT-7 plane was piloted by 2nd Lt. William A. Gamber, 23, of Fayette, Ohio. It also had three aviation cadets aboard: Munn, 23, of St. Clairsville; John Mortenson, 25, of Moscow, Idaho; and Leo M. Mustonen, 22, of Brainerd, Minn. After the plane vanished, its fate was a mystery until 1947, when wreckage and some scant human remains were discovered.

"We're just lucky that somebody walked by there when there was a thaw and his body was exposed," Mann said. "If not, he could have stayed there for hundreds of thousands of years."

[Last modified November 19, 2005, 01:09:04]