Remains of US army gunner shot down in France found 80 years on
The remains of a US army aviator who went missing after German forces shot his bomber plane down in France during the second world war nearly 80 years ago have been located, according to officials.
Franklin P Hall, who was a 21-yearold staff sergeant for the US army air force at the time of his death, is now set to receive a proper funeral, said a news release that the military distributed Monday.
Hall was a left waist gunner on a B-24D Liberator dubbed the Queen Marlene when it was shot down by the Luftwaffe near the village of ÉquennesÉramecourt, near Amiens in northern France, on 21 January 1944.
Germans quickly found the bomber’s wreckage, recovered the remains of nine crew members, and buried them in a cemetery at nearby Poix-de-Picardie. Hall’s remains, however, were not officially identified or accounted for after the US and its allies won the war.
In 1951, an organization dedicated to finding the remains of US military members in Europe – the American Graves Registration Command – declared Hall could not be recovered despite a search for him.
But in 2018, historians with the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) learned Hall could be at either of two burial sites at the Normandy American cemetery, which is dedicated to US troops who died in Europe during the second world war.
Officials exhumed the remains and then subjected them to anthropological analysis and DNA sequencing.
The process established that one of those sets of remains – labeled as “X-393
St Andre” – was Hall. He was listed as “accounted for” on 13 July, and plans called for burying him in his home town of Leesburg, Florida, on a date that had not been determined as of Monday, the DPAA said Monday.
Hall’s name appears on the Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes American cemetery in France, along with those of others who fought in the second world war and have not been found, according to the DPAA. Officials added that “a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for”.
Two other Queen Marlene crew members – William L Smith and Martin E Spelts – remain unaccounted for, the DPAA’s online profile of Hall said.
Hall belonged to the army air force’s 66th bombardment squadron, 44th bombardment group. The squadron battled in north Africa before being tasked with fighting in parts of Europe that had been occupied by German forces.
Squadron bombers flew “daylight raids that put … crews in great danger from enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft fire”, the American Air Museum says on its website.
The 44th bombardment group embarked on more than 340 missions, dropping nearly 19,000 tons of bombs. More than 150 of its aircraft went missing in action, according to the museum’s website.