Remains narrowed to 1 of 4 airmen
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Forensic anthropologists in Hawai'i trying to identify the mummified remains of a World War II Army airman have narrowed the list of possible identities to one of four airmen killed in a 1942 crash.
By using a special light source, Paul Emanovsky, a forensic anthropologist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command's identification lab at Hickam Air Force Base, was able to read enough letters on a corroded name tag found with the remains last month, said Army Maj. Rumi Nielson-Green.
"He was successful in recovering several letters of a name, and it corresponds with the name of one of the four individuals on the aircraft," she said.
The letters would be invisible to the naked eye, she said.
Nielson-Green, who said she could not yet reveal the name on the tag, said the evidence is circumstantial and would not be used to exclude any of the four men.
"It was found on an outer garment, and there are lots of reasons why he might have it on," she said. "But it gives us a certain level of confidence that we are looking at the right incident with these four individuals."
Lab officials now believe that the remains came from the wreckage of an Army training flight that disappeared on Nov. 18, 1942, somewhere on Darwin Glacier.
Four men were aboard: 2nd Lt. William A. Gamber, 23, of Fayette, Ohio; Cadet John M. Mortenson, 25, of Moscow, Idaho; Cadet Ernest G. Munn, 23, of Pleasant Grove, Ohio; and Cadet Leo M. Mustonen, 22, of Brainerd, Minn. The lab has requested the dental records of all four men but has yet to receive them. Those records should be key evidence because the teeth with the remains, which were found encased in ice, had a lot of dental work done.
A biological profile of the remains determined they are of a 20-something white man with fair hair who was 5 feet 9 to 6 feet 2, Nielson-Green said. He had 45 cents in one pocket — none of the coins dated later than 1942 — and a calendar datebook for 1942.
Before the analysis, lab officials thought the remains belonged to one of 10 people who had disappeared in the area.
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.
