WWII airmen buried together, apart
Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Va. — Although Lt. Col. Earle J. Abner Jr. and 2nd Lt. Maurice J. Harper died together, the first burials for the two World War II airmen took place 56 years and thousands of miles apart. Last week, newly discovered remains were buried together in a single coffin.
Associated Press
Science has made it easier to identify remains, even tiny fragments from decades-old battles. But sometimes it's impossible to separate the remains. In such cases, the military buries them together, usually at Arlington National Cemetery.
The families of Lt. Col. Earle J. Aber Jr. and 2nd Lt. Maurice J. Harper attended funeral services Friday at Arlington National Cemetery, more than five decades after the World War II airmen were fatally shot down.
And so, Aber, of Wisconsin, and Harper, of Pell City, Ala., now share one casket and headstone.
"I like the idea," said Harper's sister, Mary Elizabeth Lamberth. "They've been together so long, it was appropriate."
The number of group burials has increased: nine by the Army last year, up from seven the previous year.
"We do it all the time," said Shari Lawrence, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Personnel Command. "One of the things we try to tell the families is it'll be as if they died yesterday, but most of them aren't prepared for that."
Aber and Harper were killed March 4, 1945, when the B-17 they were piloting was shot off the coast of England by British gunners who mistook it for a German aircraft. They maintained control of the plane long enough for the nine crewmen to parachute to safety, then crashed into a river estuary. Only Aber's arm was found, identifiable by a Boy Scout ring he wore. It was buried in England in 1945.
Relic hunters discovered the plane's wreckage in late 1999, and a team from the British Navy and the U.S. Army's Central Identification Lab in Hawai'i recovered it in June 2000.
Harper's identifiable remains were returned to his family and buried last fall in Birmingham, Ala. Aber's identifiable remains will be laid to rest soon in England, alongside his severed arm.
