Airman Buried 46 Years After Death in Jungle

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Nearly half a century ago, a young Army airman left his wife and family in Wichita to fight in World War II over the Pacific Ocean.

On Friday, 1st Lt. Robert Schwensen was finally laid to rest here, a year after his remains were discovered by Australian gold miners atop a mountain in a dense jungle of New Guinea.

Schwensen and four other men aboard a C-47 had been listed as missing in action since their aircraft was shot down by Japanese fighter planes in February, 1943.

Schwensen was buried Friday under overcast skies with an honor guard and a 21-gun salute at Ft. Leavenworth’s National Cemetery. “At last, he’s going to finally be home where he belongs,” June Rockhill, the woman Robert Schwensen left behind in the fall of 1942, said in an earlier interview. She was 18 at the time and had been married just three months. She remarried in 1947.

“This has been very trying for me and my husband. It brings back a lot of memories,” she said. “But my husband’s been wonderful through the whole thing.”

Mrs. Rockhill, her husband and Schwensen’s two surviving brothers--E. W. (Swede) Schwensen of Del Mar, Calif., and John Schwensen of Mansfield, Tex.--were among the audience of about 100 at the rites.

John Schwensen, a minister, gave the eulogy. In an interview after the ceremony, he said of his dead brother: “He was in New Guinea and now he is at rest in our own minds here. It does give us some consolation. My only wish is that my parents were here.”

He said he was 12 years old when he learned that his brother was missing in action. “At first, I didn’t understand it, but then I realized that life has death in it,” he said.

Air Force officials in Washington said it is rare to find the remains of missing servicemen so long after World War II.