Dignified Transfer – WWII airman MIA Staff Sgt Carl Shaffer
Event Date
05/11/2019
Event Time1:30 pm;
Location
Firebase 69
82nd and Bartram Ave
Philadelphia, PA
A recently identified soldier from World War II will be arriving at Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday, May 11th at approximately 2:00 pm. You are welcome to be part of the motorcycle escort that will honor and escort him home to the Pottstown area. If you want to be part of this event, meet other riders at a firehouse located at 8201 Tinicum Avenue, Philadelphia Pa., at 1:30 pm.
Pottstown airman MIA since World War II accounted for
Carl M. Shaffer was on a bomber that crashed Jan. 21, 1944. His remains have been identified.
WRITTEN BY MIKE URBAN
POTTSTOWN, PA —
A Pottstown airman killed during World War II and declared missing in action for almost 75 years has now been accounted for, the Department of Defense announced.
Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Carl M. Shaffer, 22, was aboard a B-24J bomber nicknamed Gallopin’ Gus that crashed in the Tarawa Atoll in the Pacific on Jan. 21, 1944.
On Dec. 20, a set of remains found in 2017 on Betio Island was confirmed as his by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, and is awaiting transport to his family.
Shaffer, a graduate of Pottstown High School, lived on North Charlotte Street in Pottstown before he entered the Army, according to Cheryl Detweiler of Royersford, his niece and closest living relative.
Detweiler’s mom, Ruth Detwiler — who spelled her name differently than her daughter — was Shaffer’s sister, and died in 1998. Detweiler said her family had long hoped his remains would be found, and though she wishes it had happened while his parents and three siblings were alive, she’s thankful for those who continued to work to identify him, an accomplishment her family considers miraculous.
“It’s touching,” said Detweiler, 73. “I’m amazed.”
Shaffer, a radio operator and gunner on the plane, was one of 10 servicemen killed the crash, which occurred shortly after the plane took off on a bombing mission a little after midnight. Another plane had crashed into the lagoon 17 minutes prior, also killing all 10 aboard, according to the DOD.
An investigation found that water was in the fuel of both planes and caused those crashes, said Michael Mee, chief of identification for the Army Past Conflict Repatriation Branch.
Mee met with Detweiler and her family in January to explain the details of how Shaffer was found and identified:
The crash occurred in a shallow lagoon near shore, which allowed Shaffer’s remains to be recovered. He was buried in a coffin in what was called Cemetery 33 on Betio Island, one of several cemeteries established there after the U.S. seized the island from the Japanese in November 1943.
In the years just after the war, there were numerous attempts to consolidate and beautify the military cemeteries there, with some remains being identified and returned home or consolidated in the island’s Lone Palm Cemetery.
Shaffer’s remains were not identified during that process, though, and he was declared nonrecoverable. Due to problems with burial records, his remains were in Cemetery 33 but not found.
From 2009-2017 the nonprofit group History Flight partnered with the POW/MIA accounting agency to search the island for more remains. Among the coffins they found were Shaffer’s, and in 2017 his remains were sent to the accounting agency’s laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Honolulu.
“They thought the cemetery had been cleared, but they’d missed him,” Mee said.
Extensive testing was done to confirm that DNA in Shaffer’s bones matched Detweiler’s to prove they were related. His remaining teeth also matched his dental records, and the details of his burial location matched the information about where he’d been interred. In addition, his boots were still partially intact, and the size 10 on the soles matched his shoe size.
Detweiler said the accounting agency had kept in touch over the years, and officials told her they thought they were getting closer to finding Shaffer’s remains, but while she was hopeful, she found that possibility hard to believe.
When she got the call in December that he’d been identified, she was shocked.
“I just thought it was incredible,” she said. “I never dreamed they would go to the extent they did.”
There are still 72,738 service members unaccounted for from World War II, according to the accounting office, with about 26,000 assessed as being “possibly recoverable.”
Though so much time has passed, Detweiler hopes more will get the closure that her family is receiving.
“They never stopped,” she said of the search crews and investigators.
Plans are being made to fly Shaffer’s remains to Philadelphia Airport, and Detweiler said she and her family will be there with the funeral director to receive them. Shaffer will receive an honor ceremony on the tarmac.
Detweiler is also planning a service for him when he returns home, and will bury him at Highland Memorial Park cemetery in Pottstown, where other family members are interred
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