10/22/2008 9:42:00 PM Finally home: Ceremony honors returning World War II veteran
Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier
A United States Army honor guard brings the recently identified remains of 2nd Lt. Ray Packard, who was shot down and reported missing in action in World War II, to be interred at Prescott's National Cemetery on Wednesday.
Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier
Phoenix Army National Guard Chaplain John Lockhart hands the ceremonial flag to Ron and Esperanza Packard after the ceremony for 2nd Lt. Ray Packard, Ron’s uncle, who was shot down and reported missing in action in World War II and whose remains were recently identified. 2nd Lt. Packard was interred at Prescott’s National Cemetery on Wednesday.
PRESCOTT - Sixty-four years ago, eight-year-old Ron Packard got the worst news of his young life.
In the summer of 1944, Packard learned that his uncle - the man who was never too busy to play with the children - would not be coming home from war.
"He was my favorite uncle," Packard, now a Lake Havasu City retiree, said of his father's younger brother, Ray Packard. "He always brought us kids something, and he liked to horse around with us."
So, for young Ron, the news that his uncle was missing in action in World War II was "really bleak."
Packard said he has often thought about the family's missing link. But he never expected the news he received this past August - that the U.S. Army had recovered his uncle's remains in France.
On Wednesday, Packard finally welcomed his uncle home. In front of about 100 friends, veterans, and government officials, the U.S. Army buried 2nd Lt. Ray Packard's remains, with full military honors, at the Prescott National Cemetery.
Flanked by dozens of U.S. flags fluttering in the breeze, Lt. John Lockhart, a chaplain with the Army National Guard, celebrated the return of Ray Packard.
"Today is a good day," Lockhart told the crowd. "We can finally bring Lt. Packard back home to where he belongs."
Punctuating Lockhart's message were the
staccato motions of a Phoenix-area Army National Guard Honor Guard, somberly unfolding and refolding a U.S. flag over the urn that held Lt. Packard's cremated remains.
Scores of veterans from the Prescott area and around the state were among those on hand for the ceremony. The parking lot was full of cars and motorcycles carrying veterans.
"We welcomed a veteran home today," Surprise motorcyclist Tom Rohan said afterwards. "He was gone a long time."
Rohan, who makes a point of attending as many similar ceremonies as he can, noted that as a Vietnam veteran, "nobody welcomed me home when I came home. We want to let these guys and their families know that we're glad they served."
Capt. Russ Ritter, Casualty Assistance Officer for the Army, says such acknowledgment is crucial to families who have lost loved ones. "This family was without closure for 60-plus years," Ritter said. "This is absolutely integral."
Through its team of archaeologists and the main lab in Hawaii, Ritter said the Army was able to piece together the story of Lt. Packard's final mission.
A press release from the U.S. Department of Defense reports that Packard was a pilot in a flight of 22 P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft in France on Aug. 25, 1944. But en route to their destination, the U.S. planes encountered a group of 80 German planes, which shot down 11 of the P-38s, including Packard's plane.
While Packard's remains originally were unaccounted for, teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command conducted two excavations in 2006 and 2007 and recovered human remains, including Packard's identification tag.
Now, more than six decades later, Lt. Packard's contemporaries are mostly all gone, including the soldier's two brothers, his nephew said.
The passing of the years did nothing to lessen the impact for Ron Packard. "I was awake most of last night, thinking about him," he said of his uncle. The ceremony, he added, "put some closure to it."
Posted: Sunday, November 09, 2008
Article comment by:
Gary Koch
I am the historian of the 474th Fighter Group Association and would like to respond to reader's "E" comment. Here is the story of that Aug. 25, 1944 mission and how Lt. Ray Packard was finally discovered.
On the 25th of August 1944, the 9th Air Force had something special planned. The Allies had continued to gain a larger toehold in Northern France since D-Day. However, progress was being delayed due to the Luftwaffe which still had many bases in France. It was to be on this Friday that the 9th Air Force wanted to deal them a blow that would hasten their retreat back to the Fatherland. It was ordered that all available assets be dedicated that day to attacking any Luftwaffe sanctuary remaining on French soil.
The 474th Fighter Group was assigned three Nazi airfields to attack in the area of Laon, France. They took off at midday from their airfield, called A-11, near the hamlet of Neuilly-la-Foret. It was a dusty little 5,000 foot strip carved from an apple orchard only a few kilometers south of Omaha Beach. The entire formation of 23 P-38Js consisted of 12 ships from the 428th Fighter Squadron and 11 ships from the 429th Fighter Squadron, each plane carrying two 500-pound bombs. Their flight plan was to take them to the city of Evreaux as a waypoint then turning northeast towards Laon. But as with many missions, this one was "Not as Briefed" as the saying went.
Near Beauvais, France, the 474th FG formation was warned by ground controllers that enemy aircraft were in the area and to be on the alert. It wasn't long after that Lt. George Guyon, a 428th pilot, sighted a large formation of German fighters at their 9 o'clock position headed in the opposite direction at roughly the same altitude. The formation of German fighters turned out to be 30-plus Bf109G-14s of III./JG76 being escorted by 10 Fw190A-8s of I./JG26. The Germans were on a fighter sweep towards Normandy. Both formations sighted each other simultaneously. The Germans dropped their external fuel tanks, the P-38s jettisoned their bombs, and both turned into each other in a head-on pass at 11,000 feet directly over Cambronne-les-Clermont. Several ships from both sides went down in that initial pass before the fight broke up into many individual dogfights. The fight had gone on for only five minutes when a formation of 32 Fw190A-8s of II./JG26 happened upon the scene and engaged the furball in progress. This did not bode well for the 474th as this group included several crack German aces and was led by well-known Luftwaffe ace, Hauptman Emil "Bully" Lang. Planes from both sides continued going down in flames with so many parachutes in the air that one 428th FS pilot remarked that "it looked like a 101st Airborne invasion".
As with most dogfights, the fight was pretty well over not long after it had began. The 474th group leader, Captain Ernie Nuckols, was across the Seine river calling for any P-38s still flying to rejoin on him and head for home. In the end, eleven of the 23 P-38s had been lost (8 428th ships and 3 429th ships). A miracle considering they faced better than 3 to 1 odds against some of the best German pilots in theater at the time. The 474th did not come away empty handed however. They managed to shoot down at least 21 Bf109s and one Fw190, including the Bf109 group leader Hauptman Egon Albrecht. This count was confirmed by intelligence intercepts of Luftwaffe communications the following day that also showed another 5 Bf109s had been badly shot up with two more crash landing back at their home base of Athis, France.
Four 474th FG pilots (Capt. Charles Holcomb, Lt. Joseph Stone, Lt. Jerry Zierlein, and Lt. Ray Packard) were KIA on that mission, five would escape and evade capture, and two were taken as prisoners of war. The crash sites of Capt. Holcomb, Lt. Stone, and Lt. Zierlein were discovered shortly after the war allowing for proper disposition and return of their remains stateside. Ray Packard was seen going down early in the fight, but his crash site was never found. Ray's loss remained a mystery despite a 1951 investigation by the Army of the crash area. It wasn't until 2005 that the mystery began to unravel. It was then that a French WWII historian and researcher, Mr. Alain Bodel, made contact with the son of a witness (then deceased) who had seen a P-38 crash in his field near the village of Angy on 25 August 1944. Upon interviewing the witness' son, Mr. Bodel was shown wreckage that had been dug up at the site in the late 1960s during tilling of the field. Mr. Bodel and fellow researchers did a preliminary excavation of the site which luckily unearthed Ray Packard's dogtag. Mr. Bodel informed me (as the 474th FG historian) of the find and sent me digital photos of the wreckage. I then notified US Government authorities that we had located a WWII crash site likely belonging to Ray Packard. Shortly therafter, I was contacted by the Joint POW/MIA Accountability Command (JPAC) and coordination was begun that resulted in JPAC site visits in 2006 and 2007 to fully excavate the site. Additional wreckage and remains were found which were positively identified by JPAC as belonging to Ray Packard.
Ray was a young 20-year old fighter pilot who joined up with the 428th Fighter Squadron on 18 August 1944, only seven days before his first and only combat mission. My father, also a 428th FS fighter pilot at the time, recalls him as a tall, nice-looking kid playing touch football with the guys a couple of days after he reported to the outfit. I am now in touch with Ray's nephew and hope to gain more biographical background on him.
Hope this helps.
Posted: Sunday, November 09, 2008
Article comment by:
Alain BODEL
I'm one of the French Guys who found the crash site.
Details on the research available from 474th FG Association.
Tks your interest,
Alain Bodel
Beauvais, France
bodel.alain@wanadoo.fr
Posted: Saturday, October 25, 2008
Article comment by:
E
I am very happy to have this veteran home. I wish the Courier had some information as to how this veterans remains were recovered. He flew a P38. Was the crash site found, did he parachute out to be recovered 60 years later. Many details of great interest were not reported in this story.
