Tiny bone a link to fate of war pilot,...

[SEATJERKER]

Genealogists try to solve mystery of Maj. Christos Bogiages, who crashed over Laos 35 years ago

By BRUCE A. SCRUTON, Staff writer
First published: Thursday, March 4, 2004

Air Force pilot Christos C. Bogiages Jr. disappeared 35 years ago when his F-105 crashed while on a bombing mission in Laos. The mystery of what happened to the Albany native endured as his wife and two sons came to accept their loss.
But a tiny bone fragment recovered from the scene could hold the clue to confirming the pilot's fate. An analysis of the fragment, which wound up in the possession of the Air Force, determined the bone was from a Caucasian. With a known mitochondrial DNA sample, a scientific link could be made.

Now officials are on a genealogy search that stretches back three generations to link Bogiages and the bone to a set of sisters in Schaghticoke.

Bogiages was an Air Force major when, on March 2, 1969, four weeks from his 35th birthday, his jet crashed near Ban Na Mai, Laos. His mission was part of a hidden war that knew no international boundaries.

"Bo," as his family and friends knew him, loved flying and believed in the war against Communism in Southeast Asia, his wife, Linda, said this week from her home in Gulf Breeze, Fla. A 1952 graduate of Christian Brothers Academy, Bogiages went on to the University at Albany. After joining the Air Force, he married and moved to Florida. His parents soon followed, while his brother, Paul, stayed in the Capital Region. Paul died about a decade ago

The pilot had two sons, Christos III, who owns a medical computer systems company in Florida; and Andrew, who died in 1988.

Linda Bogiages said coming to terms with the apparent death of their father affected her sons differently. Andrew never really accepted it. For Christos, "not having a father, I think, has made him a better father," she said.

For the widow, acceptance "was a very gradual thing." It was three years, she now believes, before she stopped looking for him. She never remarried "because you don't want to lose another person you truly love."

In the late 1970s, when the Pentagon offered burial at Arlington National Cemetery for MIAs, Linda Bogiages accepted a site.

"I've never been there. I understand there's a cross with Bo's name on it," she said. Her view on the war that claimed her husband's life, and the wars that followed, is that none have been worth it.

Bogiages' jet crashed deep in territory controlled by the Khmer Rouge, and the site was known almost from the start. Nine months later, American forces conducted a covert mission to reach the site. All they recovered was a boot and a piece of material, later determined to be part of a parachute deployment bag.

According to a U.S. Senate committee report, there were hints over the years that an F-105 pilot killed in a crash was buried nearby. As late as 1991, Bogiages' name was on lists of U.S. casualties from Laos and Thailand.

Laos has been tight-lipped about what happened to the nearly 400 Americans presumed lost there, but that government has allowed in a limited number of American search teams. In October 1998, one of those teams went to the crash site, said Mark Blair, chief of the Air Force Mortuary in San Antonio, Texas.

Villagers told the searchers about a burned body in the plane's wreckage that disappeared within hours. While the team offered rewards, "they found no remains, but did come up with artifacts," he said.

Blair said his records do not indicate how the bone came into the possession of the U.S. government, but in February 1999, it was sent from the mortuary in Hawaii to a military DNA lab in Rockville, Md.

In April 2003, the Air Force awarded the American History Co. in Fredricksburg, Va., a contract to track down Bogiages' ancestors. Mitochondrial DNA is passed along maternal lines. While a man will have the same DNA code as his mother, he will not pass it on to his children, even if he were to have a daughter. That eliminates Bogiages' niece -- his only living female blood relative -- as a possible source. Defense Department regulations prohibit exhumation of a relative to recover DNA for identification of service personnel, so a living relative must be found.

"This is where the public might be able to help," said Therese Fisher, the company's genealogy expert. "There may be folklore that opens up new avenues of research."

Genealogy research shows that Christos Bogiages' mother was Kathryn Guildia Bogiages, who was the daughter of Julia Burke Guildia, who was the daughter of William Burke and Jane Porr Burke, Irish immigrants who settled in Schaghticoke in the 1860s.

But in those generations, there were no other known female children who lived to adulthood, hence no other line from which a DNA match might be possible.

The search went further back to the Civil War days when birth records showed that Julia Burke had two sisters, Margaret Burke, born in 1857, and Anna Burke, born in 1860.

But the researchers could find no death or marriage certificates or other records for either woman and the trail for William Burke and Jane Porr ends in 1870 with William's death.

"He was about 15 years older than she, so we assume she might have remarried (which might open up another DNA line), but we can't find any records," Fisher said.

The Air Force gave permission for a rare public appeal for help, she said. Such an appeal resulted in successful leads in another case she handled.

"Somebody has heard family stories, or has church records or even done their own family research," Fisher said. "It's coming at it from a different direction. A way that we don't know of that could resolve this case."

While long gone from Albany, the sacrifice of Maj. Bogiages has not been forgotten. His name appears on a Vietnam memorial in LaFayette Park, and has for more than a decade been worn on the wrist of Times Union reporter Carol DeMare.

After DeMare wrote several articles about veterans, Lawrence Wiest, president of the Tri-County Council of Vietnam Era Veterans, gave her an MIA bracelet. She has worn it ever since.

While Linda Bogiages said she feels she found closure long ago, she hopes the mystery of her husband's fate will be solved in a way that will touch the lives of the generations that followed him.

A positive determination on his remains, she said, "will be meaningful for our son and his children."

Anyone with possible information on Jane (Porr) Burke or Margaret or Anna Burke or their female descendants can contact American History Co. toll free at (800) 813-1049.

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