Sands hid fate of Gulf War pilot lost since '91
AP
FILE - This a photo of Michael Scott Speicher made aboard the carrier USS AP – FILE - This a photo of Michael Scott Speicher made aboard the carrier USS Saratoga in June 18, 1990 when
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By PAULINE JELINEK and PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writers Pauline Jelinek And Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writers – 52 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Navy pilot Michael "Scott" Speicher was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the Gulf War in 1991 and it was there he apparently was buried by Bedouins, the sand hiding him from the world's mightiest military all these years.
In a sorrowful resolution to the nearly two-decade-old question about his fate, the Pentagon disclosed Sunday it had received new information last month from an Iraqi citizen that led Marines to recover bones and skeletal fragments — enough for a positive identification.
His family issued a statement Sunday saying, "The news that Captain Speicher has died on Iraqi soil after ejecting from his aircraft has been difficult for the family, but his actions in combat, and the search for him, will forever remain in their hearts and minds."
President Barack Obama called the news "a reminder of the selfless service that led him to make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom."
"My thoughts and prayers are with his family, and I hope that the recovery of his remains will bring them a needed sense of closure," Obama said in a statement issued Sunday.
Former President George H.W. Bush, who was commander in chief in 1991, said, "We already knew he was a hero, one who helped lead our way to a historic victory in the Gulf, but now his family and countrymen know — and history will finally record — that he was one of the very first patriots to give his life in the liberation of Kuwait."
Shot down over west-central Iraq on a combat mission in his FA-18 Hornet on Jan. 17, 1991, Speicher was declared killed by the Pentagon hours later. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney went on television and announced the U.S. had suffered its first casualty of the war.
But 10 years later, the Navy changed his status to missing in action, citing an absence of evidence that Speicher had died. In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to "missing/captured," although it has never said what evidence it had that he ever was in captivity. More reviews followed, without definitive answers.
The family Speicher left behind, from outside Jacksonville, Fla., continued to press for the military to do more.
His story never waned in Jacksonville. A large banner flying outside a firefighters' credit union has a photo of him with the words: "Free Scott Speicher." At his church, a memorial was put up in his honor. The tennis complex at his alma mater, Florida State University, was named for him.
A high school classmate who helped form the group "Friends Working to Free Scott Speicher" said Sunday his biggest fear was that Speicher had been taken alive and tortured.
"This whole thing has been so surreal for all of the people who have known Scott," said Nels Jensen, 52, who now lives in Arkansas.
Jensen said the group was frustrated the military didn't initially send a search and rescue team after the crash, and then grew more perplexed as reports of his possible capture emerged. "Never again will our military likely not send out a search and rescue party for a downed serviceman," Jensen said.
To the top Navy officer, the discovery is evidence of the military's commitment to bring its troops home. "Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be," said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of Naval Operations.
Over the years, critics contended the Navy had not done enough, particularly right after the crash, to search for the 33-year-old Speicher. A lieutenant commander when he went missing, Speicher later reached the rank of captain because he kept receiving promotions while his status was unknown.
Family spokeswoman Cindy Laquidara said relatives learned Saturday that Speicher's remains had been found. "The family's proud of the way the Defense Department continued on with our request" to not abandon the search, she said. "We will be bringing him home."
In a statement issued Sunday by Laquidara, the family said, "Although nothing can fill the void left by Captain Speicher's death, we find some solace in having transformed the search process, so that no serviceman or woman is ever, ever, left behind again."
Obama thanked the Marines who recovered Speicher's remains. "As with all our service men and women considered Missing in Action, we remain steadfast in our determination to bring our American heroes home," he said.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 finally gave investigators the chance to search inside Iraq. Speicher's family — including two college-age children who were toddlers when he disappeared — believed more evidence would surface as Iraq grew more stable.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., planned to take down the POW/MIA flag he had placed outside his office when Speicher went missing.
"These children can move on with their lives and know what a hero their father was and he died in the service of his country," Nelson told reporters at a news conference at his office in Jacksonville.
A number of new leads did surface after the invasion of Iraq, including the discovery of what some believed were the initials "MSS" scratched into the wall of an Iraqi prison. More than 50 sites were checked by military search crews in the months after the invasion — hospitals, prisons, security archives, homes and the original site where Speicher's plane crashed, about 100 miles north of the Saudi Arabian border.
Crews first visited the site in 1995. They found wings, the canopy and unexploded ordnance, but the cockpit and Speicher were missing.
Investigators excavated a potential grave site in Baghdad in 2005, tracked down Iraqis said to have information about Speicher and made numerous other inquiries.
Officials said Sunday that they got new information last month from an Iraqi citizen, prompting Marines stationed in the western province of Anbar to visit a location in the desert that was believed to be the crash site. The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert, the Pentagon said.
"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Capt. Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Defense Department said in a statement.
The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments and Speicher was positively identified by matching a jawbone and dental records, said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp. He said the Iraqis told investigators that the Bedouins had buried Speicher. It was unclear whether the military had information on how soon Speicher died after the crash.
Some had said they believed Speicher ejected from the plane and was captured by Iraqi forces, and the initials were seen as a potential clue he might have survived. There also were reports of sightings.
While dental records have confirmed the remains to be those of Speicher, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Md., is running DNA tests on the remains recovered and comparing them with DNA reference samples previously provided by family members.
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, conveyed condolences to Speicher's family in a statement from Baghdad. "Although we cannot fully understand the sense of loss, or the pain his family has shouldered throughout the years of waiting, we hope they can find solace in his dignified and honorable return home," he said.
Last year, then-Navy Secretary Donald Winter ordered another review of the case after receiving a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks prisoners of war and service members missing in action.
Many in the military believed for years that Speicher had not survived the crash or for long after. Intelligence had never found evidence he was alive, and some officials felt last year that all leads had been exhausted and Speicher would finally be declared killed.
But after the latest review, Winter said Speicher would remain classified as missing, despite Winter's strong reservations about the pilot's status and cited "compelling" evidence that he was dead.
Announcing his decision, Winter criticized the board's recommendation to leave Speicher's status unchanged, saying the board based its conclusions on the belief that Speicher was alive after ejecting from his plane. The board "chose to ignore" the lack of any parachute sighting, emergency beacon signal or radio communication, Winter said.
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Associated Press writers Kim Gamel in Baghdad, Ron Word in Jacksonville, Fla., and Jacob Jordan in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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After 113 remarkable years Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man, passes into history
By
Jonathan Petre and Richard Creasy
Last updated at 2:49 AM on 19th July 2009
First World War veteran Henry Allingham, who became the world's oldest man last month, has died at the age of 113.
As tributes poured in, Lord's cricket ground fell silent at the
start of play in the Ashes match between England and Australia as a
mark of respect for Mr Allingham, who died in his sleep early yesterday
morning.
He was one of the last three surviving British veterans of the First
World War, the last surviving founder member of the RAF, the last man
to have witnessed the Battle of Jutland and the last surviving member
of the Royal Naval Air Service.
Legacy: Henry Allingham with his great-granddaughter Ami Gray and her daughter, two-year-old Lauren, in 2006
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: 'He was a tremendous character,
one of the last representatives of a generation of tremendous
characters.'
The Queen said he was 'one of the generation who sacrificed so much for us all'.
A Clarence House spokesman said: 'The Prince of Wales was sad to
hear of the death of Henry Allingham. Henry belonged to that incredible
generation who did so much for their country and we owe him a huge
debt.'
Changing times: Henry Allingham as a baby in 1896
In the foreword to Mr Allingham's autobiography, Kitchener's Last
Volunteer, Prince Charles wrote in 2008: 'He has witnessed so much of
our history - including the sinking of the Titanic, the Great War, the
Depression, the Second World War and the building of the Welfare State
- taking in six of my forebears, as well as 21 Prime Ministers.
'We should all be humbled by this quiet, genial man and his desire
to extol peace and friendship to the world, despite all the horrors he
witnessed at such a young and impressionable age.'
So long ago: Henry Allingham wearing a sailor suit as a boy
Born in East London in 1896, Mr Allingham was married to his late wife Dorothy for more than 50 years.
They had five grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren and one great-great-great-grandchild.
The veteran, who was being cared for at St Dunstan's care home in
Ovingdean, near Brighton, celebrated his 113th birthday on June 6 with
his family on board London's HMS President.
Young love: Mr Allingham pictured with fiancee Dorothy May in 1916. The couple were married for more than 50 years
Two weeks later, Guinness World Records confirmed that he had become
the world's oldest man after the previous record holder, Tomoji Tanabe,
died in Japan aged 113.
Mr Allingham once jokingly attributed his longevity to 'cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women'.
But he later admitted that he had taken care of himself, adding:
'The trick is to look after yourself and always know your limitations.'
Mr Allingham lays a wreath at the Air Services Memorial, in St.Omer, France, during an Armistice Day Service in 2005
Mr Allingham's death means that Harry Patch, 111, the last survivor
of the First World War trenches, is now Britain's oldest man.
Nicknamed 'the last Tommy', Mr Patch is a veteran of the 1917 battle
of Passchendaele in which more than 70,000 British troops were killed.
He now lives at a residential home in Somerset. The other remaining
First World War survivor, Worcestershire-born 108-year-old Claude
Choules, who served with the Royal Navy, now lives in Australia.
Queen Elizabeth meets Mr Allingham at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party in 2007
Mr Allingham tried to join the Army in 1914 but his mother, who was
ill, persuaded him to stay at home and nurse her. She died a year later
and he then joined the Royal Naval Air Service. In May 1916, he
survived the battle of Jutland which claimed 6,000 lives.
In 1917, he was posted to the Western Front and found himself in the
trenches at Ypres, where his job was neutralising bombs left behind by
the Germans. He later said he could never forget the smell of mud and
rotting flesh.
Emotional moment: A tear is wiped away from Mr
Allingham's eye at a service to mark the 90th anniversary of the Great
War Armistice
He once told the BBC: 'War's stupid. Nobody wins. You might as well talk first. You have to talk last, anyway.'
In 1918 he transferred to the newly formed Royal Air Force and after
the war he worked for the Ford Motor Company until his retirement.
He buried his war memories for decades - refusing even to discuss
them with his family - and he would not go to reunions organised by his
former comrades.
Inspiration: RAF air cadets chat to Mr Allingham (with grandson David Gray and his wife Charlotte Gray)
But in 2005, he was asked to unveil an RAF memorial in France and he decided that it would be disrespectful to refuse.
He then became a tireless campaigner, attending commemorative events including the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
Even after he moved to St Dunstan's care home when he was 108,
because his sight and hearing were failing, Mr Allingham insisted on
visiting schools to tell youngsters about his wartime experiences.
World war heroes: Allingham (right) and 106
year old William Stone (second left) meet senior members of the defence
staff at the Ministry of Defence in 2007
Robert Leader of the St Dunstan's charity, which supports visually
impaired ex-Servicemen and women, said: 'He was very active right up to
his final days.
'As well as possessing a great spirit of fun, he represented the last of a generation who gave a very great deal for us.'
Dennis Goodwin, from the First World War Veterans' Association, who
regularly visited Mr Allingham at St Dunstan's, said he had lost 'an
exceptionally good friend'.
He added: 'He has left quite a legacy to the nation of memories of what it was like to have been in the First World War.'
The funeral will take place later this month as St Nicholas's Church in Brighton.
Three British veterans of World War II: Harry
Patch, of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (left), William Stine
(centre) of the Royal Navy and Mr Allingham (right), at a reception for
British military veterans in 2006
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Published: June 20, 2009
BY ROGER BROWN
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
“The world depended on them. They depended on each other.”
That was the tagline for “Band of Brothers” – an award-winning 2001
HBO mini-series drama on the World War II experiences of Easy Company,
a U.S. Army unit that fought bravely and fiercely across Europe.
But for Bristol’s Margo Johnson – daughter of Darrell “Shifty”
Powers, one of the soldiers depicted in “Band of Brothers” – two more
lines could be added to describe her heroic father: “The world truly
admired Darrell Powers. I absolutely adored him.”
“I loved everything about my daddy,” Johnson said. “He never bragged
about what he did in the war. And for a lot of years, he never even
talked much about what he did – unless someone asked him about it.
“But he truly was a hero to me,” Johnson said. “Just like he’d been to the people who know him as a soldier in a [mini-series].”
Powers, a Dickenson County native, died earlier this week at age 86
following a battle with cancer. His funeral service will be held today
in Clintwood.
“He was a brave man, even to the end of his life,” Johnson said of her father. “He’s helping me be brave now, too.”
Bravery – and dignity – was a constant, running thread in the life
of “Shifty” Powers, both during and after his life as an Army
sharpshooter in the actual “Band of Brothers.”
During the war, he fought brutal battles against the German army across France and Belgium.
After the war, Powers served as an eloquent representative for the
men he fought with: At one point during the “Band of Brothers”
mini-series, he appeared on camera to talk in moving, humane fashion
about his grim but necessary task during the war – killing the enemy.
And, too, Powers served as a loyal, steadfast representative for the
country he fought for: from graciously meeting with a former enemy
German soldier to eagerly accepting any chance to speak with modern-day
members of the U.S. military.
Ivan Schwarz, a producer on the “Band of Brothers” HBO series,
remembers Powers as a “kind, generous soul with a great sense of humor.”
“Shifty was an incredibly humble human being,” said Schwarz, now
executive director of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission in
Cleveland, Ohio.
“He was like most of the other [Easy Company] soldiers we met for
the series. They were good guys who were kind of shocked that, 50 years
later, people were making a big deal over them for just doing their
duty.
“That’s exactly how [Powers] was, too,” Schwarz said.
Attempts were unsuccessful to reach Peter Youngblood Hills – the
English actor who portrayed Powers in the “Band of Brothers”
miniseries, through both HBO and his former publicity firm, Hamilton
Hodell in London, England.
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ED.W. FREEMAN
Captain, U.S. Army Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)
By the time
the Korean War broke out, Ed Freeman was a master sergeant in the Army
Engineers, but he fought in Korea as an infantryman.
He took part
in the bloody battle of Pork Chop Hill and was given a battlefield
commission, which had the added advantage of making him eligible to
fly, a dream of his since childhood. But flight school turned him down
because of his height: At six foot four, he was “too tall” (a nickname
that followed him throughout his military career). In 1955, however,
the height limit was raised, and Freeman was able to enroll.
He
began flying fixed-wing aircraft, then switched to helicopters. By
1965, when he was sent to Vietnam, he had thousands of hours’ flying
time in choppers. He was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile), second in command of a sixteen-helicopter unit responsible
for carrying infantrymen into battle. On November 14, 1965, Freeman’s
helicopters carried a battalion into the Ia Drang Valley for what
became the first major confrontation between large forces of the
American and North Vietnamese armies.
Back at base, Freeman and
the other pilots received word that the GIs they had dropped off were
taking heavy casualties and running low on supplies. In fact, the
fighting was so fierce that medevac helicopters refused to pick up the
wounded. When the commander of the helicopter unit asked for volunteers
to fly into the battle zone, Freeman alone stepped forward. He was
joined by his commander, and the two of them began several hours of
flights into the contested area. Because their small emergency-landing
zone was just one hundred yards away from the heaviest fighting, their
unarmed and lightly armored helicopters took several hits. In all,
Freeman carried out fourteen separate rescue missions, bringing in
water and ammunition to the besieged soldiers and taking back dozens of
wounded, some of whom wouldn’t have survived if they hadn’t been
evacuated.
Freeman left Vietnam in 1966 and retired from the Army
the following year. He flew helicopters another twenty years for the
Department of the Interior, herding wild horses, fighting fires, and
performing animal censuses. Then he retired altogether.
In the
aftermath of the Ia Drang battle, his commanding officer, wanting to
recognize Freeman’s valor, proposed him for the Medal of Honor. But the
two-year statute of limitations on these kinds of recommendations had
passed, and no action was taken. Congress did away with that statute in
1995, and Freeman was finally awarded the medal by President George W.
Bush on July 16, 2001.
Freeman was back at the White House a few
months later for the premiere of We Were Soldiers, a 2002 feature film
that depicted his role in the Ia Drang battle. As he was filing out of
the small White House theater, the president approached him, saluted,
and shook his hand. “Good job, Too Tall,” he said.
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