Some Closure

On Nov. 17, relatives of Lt. Wilson Pinkstaff, pilot of The Happy Legend, a B-25 bomber that crashed in the mountains of New Guinea on Dec. 5, 1942, gathered at Arlington National Cemetery, along with six other families to lay to rest the aircraft’s crew after nearly 67 years. The Chicago Daily Herald reported Tuesday two caskets were buried that day, one with the remains of one crewman, and one holding personal artifacts recovered from the crash site for five members, including Pinkstaff, for whom no remains have been identified. The seventh crewman is buried in Louisiana. Although wreckage of the bomber was first located in 1943, it took until 2006 for the remains to arrive back to the US and another few to organize a burial ceremony for all the families, the newspaper reported. (For more on the bomber’s saga, see Pacific Wrecks’ coverage.)