Friday, November 11, 2005
Update: Emailer Joseph T. Major writes:
Yet, by a strange and amazing coincidence, a World War One vet lives here in Louisville. Even stranger and more amazing, I am related to him in a fashion -- his mother's second husband was a cousin of mine.
Herewith Robley A. Rex of Kentucky, World War One veteran, Veterans' Hospital Volunteer, a Hundred and Four Years old and living at home:
Here's an entry in the Senate record about him, although they get his name and age wrong. (He couldn't have been 91 in 2002 or he would have been very, very young to have served in WW1).
All the best to Mr. Rex on this day and after!
=Original Post=
The veterans of World War I are fading away. There are thought to be less than 50 still living.
Ever fewer, WWI veterans mark the Armistice of 1918
Today, the Veterans Affairs Department lists just eight veterans as receiving disability benefits or pension compensation from service in World War I. It says a few dozen other veterans of the war probably are alive, too, but the government does not keep a comprehensive list.
The Census Bureau stopped asking for data about those veterans years ago. Using a report of 65,000 alive in 1990 as a baseline, the VA estimates that no more than 50 remain, perhaps as few as 30...
Some veterans are still coming home:
Airmen Missing from World War II Identified
They are Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Augustus J. Allen, of Myrtle Springs, Texas, Staff Sgt. James D. Cartwright, of Los Angeles, Calif., and Cpl. Paul R. Stubbs, of Haverhill, Mass.
On June 8, 1941, Allen, Cartwright and Stubbs departed France Field, Panama in an O-47A aircraft, en route to Rio Hato, Panama. When the aircraft failed to arrive at its destination, a search was initiated by both air and ground forces, but with negative results.
In April 1999, a Panamanian citizen reported to Panamanian Civil Aeronautics (PCA) he had discovered aircraft wreckage while hunting in the mountains of Panama Province, Republic of Panama. After a PCA search and rescue team visited the site, the wreckage was reported to the Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command (JPAC). JPAC specialists surveyed the area in August 1999, and in February 2002 excavated the site where they recovered remains and crew-related artifacts. The crash site was along Allen’s suspected flight path, and the aircraft was consistent with O-47A aircraft from the 39th Observation Squadron, their assigned unit. Additionally, the team recovered crew-related items at the site which helped confirm the identity of the airmen.
Scientists of JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab used mitochondrial DNA as one of the tools in the identification of the remains of Allen, Cartwright and Stubbs.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and Desert Storm, 78,000 are from World War II.
