Five More Return
DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US military personnel.
• Sgt. John C. Holladay, B Company, 1st Marine Raider Battalion, 1st Marine Raider Regiment, USMC, was lost on 20 July 1943 in the Solomon Islands. He was accounted for on 24 February 2016.
• Flight Officer Dewey L. Gossett, 527th Fighter Squadron, 86th Fighter Group, 12th Air Force, Army Air Forces, US Army, was lost on 27 September 1943 in Italy. He was accounted for on 25 February 2016.
• CPL Davey H. Bart, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, US Army, was lost on 2 November 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 24 February 2016.
• SFC Raymond K. McMillian, Medical Company, 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 12 February 1951 in South Korea. He was accounted for on 26 February 2016.
• PFC Aubrey D. Vaughn, C Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 5th Regimental Combat Team, US Army, was lost on 23 April 1951 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 24 February 2016.
Welcome back, elder brothers-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
You’re home now. Rest in peace.
. . .
Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,800 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from recovered remains against mtDNA from a matrilineal descendant can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
DPAA’s web site now has what appears to be a decent “Contact Us” page. The page doesn’t have instructions concerning who can and cannot submit a mtDNA sample or how to submit one, but the POCs listed there may be able to refer you to someone who can answer that question – or may be able to answer the question themselves. If you think you might possibly qualify, please contact one of those POCs for further information.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a mtDNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.
Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.
Category: No Longer Missing
RIP
Hondo, Thank you for sharing and posting this.
You are not forgotten, Warroirs. Salute. Rest in Peace. May your families find comfort and closure.
Bring them all home.
I read each and every one of these posts. I wish I could find words to express how I feel when I do.
Welcome home.
There is a good story about Sgt Holladay here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=quhqTbZ-TCcC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=%22Holladay%22&source=bl&ots=wEImudiiI5&sig=QrxUmCp7tH1fc4w2OANWVTePIZA&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22Holladay%22&f=false
Holden
Rest well now that you are home.
Welcome home, boys.
Rest well and enjoy the Fiddler’s Green.
Home at last. Rest in peace, brothers.
Take me home country roads..to the place I belong… AMERICA. TOO late young men, is better than never..fly high on the wings of angels…RIP
There’s a video someone shared with me years ago…I watched it once and cried my eyes out and said never again.
Its about the pilot saying we’re carrying special cargo today…KIA or MIA bringing them home and I wish I kept it. Anybody who knows what I’m talking about please share so I can download it..
please include me in all of your activity as I am a Vietnam Veteran and care about our warriors
Angel flight….RIP
Welcome home gentlemen. Rest in Peace. Your journey is now completed.
Pilot Dewey Gossett was from a small mill town in South Carolina. He was the first in his family to graduate high school and was flying an A-36 dive bomber went it went down in heavy weather on a mountain, Mount Accellica, in Southern Italy on 27 September 1943. The crash site and, ultimately, his remains, were found by a volunteer group in 2014 and he was positively identified through the efforts of a loving grand niece, Nora Messick, who wrote, “I grew up with Dewey’s picture in my room and now it hangs in my den above his citation of honor. Though I never met him, I love him all the same. Everyone was proud of Dewey.” Dewey Gossett is forever 23. Welcome home, Dewey. Many miles away from Italy and two months before Dewey Gossett’s loss, another South Carolinian, Marine John Charlton Holladay, was part of a USMC/US Army force that attacked the heavily defended port of Bairoko on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands on 20 July 1943. Many Marines fell that day and Holladay was among them. He was a graduate of Florence High School. Internment services are to occur on 4 April, Holladay’s birthday. (Note: Holladay’s home state is listed as Georgia but either that is error or he was born in GA but raised in South Carolina. A remembrance marker stands in Paxton Baptist Church Cemetery in Clarendon county, South Carolina, and lists his birthplace as South Carolina. Notice that he was KIA was received by his parents at their South Carolina home, as well.) Welcome home, John US Army CPL Davey Bart of Texas never saw his 19th birthday. His remains were among those of Americans POWs who died in captivity. A memorial service will be held for him at Rosewood Funeral Home in Humble, Texas on 26 March at 1 p.m. Welcome home, Davey. SFC Raymond K. McMillian, a medic and Virginian, died as a POW. The Korean War Project website includes this unusual entry for him: “apndx XVI- A J P McMillan is on list as senticed for war crimes appndx… Read more »