Mystery solved of airman missing in World War II

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Mystery solved of airman missing in World War II

By Mike Tobin
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

April 11, 2007

CLEVELAND ? Army Airman Steve Zayac has been gone from Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood nearly seven decades, leaving behind the mystery of what happened to him and a few photos of him and his crew in front of their B-24 Liberator bomber.

The plane and its crew disappeared in 1944 after a bombing run over New Guinea during World War II.

In the next month or two, the crew will return to the United States for a hero's burial at Arlington National Cemetery, ending the 63-year-old mystery.

For his namesake nephew, it's an appropriate end for a search marked by sophisticated science and emotion.

?In wartime, a bomber crew is like a family,? Stephen Zayac said this week from his home in North Royalton, Ohio. ?They ate together, slept together and ultimately died together. I think it's fitting that they will be buried together.?

Zayac, 55, was born eight years after his uncle's plane failed to return from its mission. Steve Zayac's remains were officially identified Monday by the Department of Defense, although the Zayac family was notified in January.

Steve Zayac joined the Army Air Corps in 1939 after graduating from James Ford Rhodes High School. He rose to the rank of technical sergeant, serving as a radio operator and gunner on a B-24, and fought in the Pacific.

He was 24 in April 1944, when the 10-man crew bombed Japanese positions in New Guinea and was knocked off course because of bad weather. The plane was never seen again, the Defense Department said. The crew was declared missing in action.

?This was before advanced maps and radar,? Zayac said. ?My understanding is they basically flew into the side of a mountain.?

The crew remained undisturbed until 2001, when the U.S. Embassy in New Guinea was notified that villagers in Morobe province found the wreckage and remains. One villager found identification tags of an airman, which were turned over to an Army team assigned to investigate.

Steve Zayac married while he was in the Air Corps, but his wife is dead. Army investigators contacted Stephen Zayac and his mother, the elder Zayac's sister-in-law.

Stephen Zayac and his brother traveled to Connecticut in 2005, where investigators presented family members with what they knew. The plane had been identified by the serial number on the tail, but making a definitive identification would require DNA.

Stephen Zayac's father, Harry, died in 1993, but the family still had a few of his combs and a hearing aid. They turned the items over to investigators, hoping that a few strands of hair still on the combs would be enough to make a match.

It was. The DNA matched the DNA in bone fragments in the plane. The Army alerted Zayac's family in January but held off on announcing it until they could identify all 10 of the crew members and contact their relatives.

The other members of the crew were: 2nd Lt. Raymond A. Cooley, of Leary, Texas; 2nd Lt. Dudley R. Ives, of Ingleside, Texas; 2nd Lt. George E. Archer, of Cushing, Okla.; 2nd Lt. Donald F. Grady, of Harrisburg, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Richard R. Sargent, of North Girard, Pa.; Staff Sgt. Joseph M. King, of Detroit; Staff Sgt. Thomas G. Knight, of Brookfield, Ill.; Staff Sgt. Norman L. Nell, of Tarkio, Mo.; and Staff Sgt. Blair W. Smith, of Nu Mine, Pa.

Zayac said he has been told that a burial in Arlington National Cemetery will occur in May or June.

?I hate the word closure, but it is nice that we know what happened,? he said.

[Boats]

Great story HC - thanks