WW II Flier Finds Dead Comrades and Peace

‘I’ve always heard that the good live and the bad die, but a lot of good men died in that crash. And I had some sins.’

Jose Holguin is finally at peace with himself--almost.

Much of the guilt and doubt that pursued Holguin for 42 years have vanished. Most of his dead comrades from World War II, unidentified and buried in unmarked graves in Hawaii since six years after they were shot down over enemy territory, are coming home.

Four are still missing. Holguin hopes that they, too, will be found and buried properly.

Holguin, 64, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and vice principal of Verdugo Hills High School. He was the only survivor of a 10-man B-17 bomber crew attacked by Japanese planes while flying back to their home base during a mission in the South Pacific.

The crew’s navigator, Holguin escaped by parachuting from the plane before it crashed. He was later captured and imprisoned for 26 months. He was released in 1945.

Holguin could never erase the memory of his friends. In 1982 he decided to go back and bring them home.

With the help of natives, Holguin found the wreckage of his plane, “The Naughty but Nice,” in New Guinea. The calender girl painted on the nose was still smiling. But Holguin could not find the remains of any of his friends.

An effort a year later was also unsuccessful. However, government officials in New Guinea told Holguin that records showed that an Army engineering team in 1949 had happened upon the crash site and found the remains of several bodies. The team sent the remains to what is now known as the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu.

Scientists there could not identify the remains. They were buried in unmarked graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Holguin contacted the laboratory in August, 1982, telling them the bodies might be those of his comrades. The case did not receive the agency’s full attention until Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) asked the laboratory last year to investigate.

The remains were disinterred in August, 1984. Last month they were positively identified by an Army physical anthropologist as the bodies of five of the crewmen of “The Naughty but Nice.” Holguin hopes to persuade the Army to help find the other four.

If that happens, his draining physical and spiritual expedition will be over. Some might call his mission an obsession. Holguin said it was the result of commitment to the men he loved.

“I had shared many combat missions with these men, and I had depended on them for my safety and existence, just like they depended on me for theirs,” Holguin said this week. “Their abilities enabled me to survive in life-and-death situations, and, even in death, they survived. I’ve always heard that the good live and the bad die, but a lot of good men died in that crash. And I had some sins.”

‘I Had an Obligation’

When Holguin decided to go back to the site in 1982, his wife, Rebecca, discouraged him. “She told me that I shouldn’t bother the dead,” he said. “She told me, ‘How will the families feel if you find the men? They’ve already dealt with the hurt, and it will just bring everything back.’

“But I had an obligation to those men. I had been hurt, and so had they, and there was no reason to protect anyone from the pain we all had to share.”

Now, Holguin said, he feels “elation and joy, combined with sadness. It all could have been in vain, but luckily it wasn’t.”

The remnants were identified through age, height and dental records as those of Staff Sgt. Henry Garcia of Los Angeles, Staff Sgt. Robert E. Griebel of Riverton, Wyo., 1st Lt. Francis G. (Frank) Peattie of Beacon, N.Y., 2nd Lt. Herman H. Knott of Astoria, N.Y., and Staff Sgt. Pace P. Payne of Corsicana, Texas.

Peace of Mind for Relatives

Relatives of the crew said Holguin’s success brought them peace of mind, too.

Helen Ormsby, the widow of Lt. Peattie, said she was shocked when she was notified last month that the remains of her husband had been located and positively identified.

“I never expected to hear anything again,” said Ormsby, an oil company official who lives in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “During and after the war, I was always sure that Frank was coming back. Then Jose came to see us after the war, and he told us what happened.

“Even though I then accepted the fact that Frank was not coming home, his mother never accepted it.” Ormsby broke into sobs. “She always said, ‘When Frank comes home,’ up until the time she died in 1971. For that reason, I’m glad that Frank is finally coming home, to be with her.

“He just loved those fellows so much. How many people would have done what he did?”

Son ‘Lived With a Void’

Henry Garcia Jr., the youngest of the four sons of Sgt. Garcia, said he had “lived all his life with a void, and Jose has filled that void. From the age of awareness, I always wanted to go back to that part of the world and find my father’s remains. But, when I got older, I realized I had no place to start.”

Garcia, 43, a maintenance engineer from Hacienda Heights, said that Holguin “was one in 10 million.”

The remains of the five men have been transported to the Army mortuary in Oakland until the families can make arrangements for funerals. Most of the survivors told Holguin that they wanted full military burials. Holguin plans to attend them all.