COMING HOME
Tennessee family battles more than 70 years to get remains of WWII pilot
For 73 years, the remains of World War II Navy pilot Harold DeMoss from Nashville have been difficult to reach — but not hard to find. ❚ In the waning months of the war, DeMoss’ plane crashed into a remote outcrop on the Hawaiian island of Oahu during a night-flight training mission July 23, 1945. ❚ A search party reached the crash site three days later, burying what they could find. Weeks later, another group came, and a Navy lieutenant recited the “Lord’s Prayer” over the shallow grave of the 21-year-old farmer’s son.
The men couldn’t take DeMoss’ remains back with them. It was weeks from the Japanese surrender. Their efforts were direly needed elsewhere. DeMoss’ parents were told they would have to wait to get their son home.
For the next seven decades — through the administrations of 13 U.S. presidents, the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars and the 9/11 attacks — the DeMoss family has waited.
In the family’s cemetery in west Nashville, there is a stretch of grass and clover under the shade of two red cedar trees set aside for Harold. The joint headstone of his mother and father sits beside it.
On May 11, Pentagon officials said they identified Harold’s remains on the island. They found his gold, engraved wedding band.
He will be coming home, they promised, in two to three months.
“I’d given up,” said Jim DeMoss, 85, Harold’s younger brother. “I didn’t believe we’d ever get him back. They had him in their hands two days after the crash, and they didn’t see fit to get him back to us. I figured nobody cared much for an old hillbilly who got killed in the war.”
Failures to find the fallen
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war.
More than 72,000 Americans still remain unaccounted for — including 1,221 from Tennessee.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, the arm of the Pentagon responsible for finding and returning the nation’s war dead, faced intense criticism for clearing so few cases.
Three years ago, it underwent a topto-bottom reorganization after an internal investigation revealed staff members enjoyed “military tourism” trips to Europe, spending extravagantly on luxury hotels and lavish meals. The agency misidentified many of the remains of recovered soldiers. It was merged into the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
With an annual budget of $130 million, the agency has identified the re- mains of about 100 veterans each year. In 2017, that figure rose to 201.
The agency faces steep challenges in recovering many of those lost in wars, men and women who were buried as unknowns, buried at sea or interred on foreign soil where access is sometimes limited. Others are classified as missing in action or lost at sea.
Harold DeMoss fits none of those categories. His remains lie fewer than 40 miles from the agency’s headquarters in Honolulu.
The two search parties in the 1940s that found him after the crash transmitted the location to superiors in the Navy.
In the ensuing years, the charts and maps documenting the location were lost.
A decade ago, Judy DeMoss Ivey, Jim’s daughter, inherited the family’s stack of telegrams and letters to government officials pleading for action.
By 2011, Ivey was thoroughly disgusted at the slow response to her repeated calls, emails and letters to Department of Defense officials and congressional representatives. “One office offered to get us a flag,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘ We don’t want the friggin’ flag. That’s not what we’re after.’ ”
She turned to the Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society, a volunteer historical group.
The crash site is remote, separated from the nearest road by at least 7 miles of thick vegetation and mud covering the rugged and steep terrain, which is home to wild pigs. In their ninth attempt, the volunteers stumbled upon a plane tire and scraps of metal. They suspected it belonged to DeMoss’ plane.
The volunteers sent the coordinates of their discovery to military officials.
Defense officials had those coordinates for seven years.
Frustration and misinformation
In 2013, the Department of Defense contacted Ivey. Officials informed the family that before the military could retrieve DeMoss’ remains, an environmental impact study would have to be done. The study was supposed to conclude in December 2014.
The family heard nothing further for two years. The family turned to Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and state Rep. Courtney Rogers, who made queries. The two lawmakers received letters within days of each other in January 2015.
The environmental impact study would be complete in March, according to a letter to Rogers from Michael Fowler, director of external affairs for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
A letter to Corker from Michael Franklin, a director for the same agency, said the study would take 16 more months to complete.
In August 2015, an investigation by The Tennessean explored the series of delays, missteps and conflicting information given to the family by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., questioned military officials on the delays.
In August 2016, military personnel were lowered to the site by helicopters, where they excavated and retrieved what they could find. The materials were sent to a laboratory in Honolulu for identification.
Forensic analysts found small fragments believed to be bone, according to a medical examiner’s report dated May 9. No DNA analysis was possible, but the opinion of the medical examiner was that the fragments “represent human remains originating from Ensign DeMoss.”
Two items were found: a U.S. Navy Pilot Wings insignia consistent with those issued during WWII and a gold metal wedding ring.
It was DeMoss’. He had a brief marriage during the war. Ivey said the family never kept in touch with his wife but learned that she died long ago.
Ivey was in east Tennessee when her cellphone rang with the news.
She immediately called her father. “She said, ‘You better sit down,’ ” Jim DeMoss said. “She said, ‘I got some good news.’ I just said: ‘ Well. I didn’t think it would ever happen.’ ”
Jim DeMoss is slow to share memories of his brother, doubting anyone would be interested.
“He was just a regular big brother,” he said. “He was my big brother.”
The Department of Defense, which did not respond to repeated requests to comment about the recovery of DeMoss, offered a burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Ivey said. She declined, asking that he be buried with full honors in the family’s private cemetery.
“I’d be glad to have him and drive by. I can come by and maybe put flowers on his grave,” Jim DeMoss said. “We never had anywhere to go. That’s the hardest part. It was hard for my mom. She didn’t have anyplace to go.”
“I figured nobody cared much for an old hillbilly who got killed in the war.”
Jim DeMoss Brother of downed pilot Harold DeMoss