Remains of B-17 crew to be buried in Arlington

The remains of nine servicemen who died in a bomber crash in Papua New Guinea during World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors, the Pentagon’s Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office said Tuesday.

Four of the crew — Army Air Forces 1st Lt. William J. Sarsfield of Philadelphia; 2nd Lt. Charles E. Trimingham of Salinas, Calif.; Tech. Sgt. Robert L. Christopherson of Blue Earth, Minn.; and Tech. Sgt. Leonard A. Gionet of Shirley, Mass. — will be buried together in a single casket today in Arlington National Cemetery.

The men will be buried along with remains from previously identified crew members: 2nd Lt. Herman H. Knott, 2nd Lt. Francis G. Peattie, Staff Sgt. Henry Garcia, Staff Sgt. Robert E. Griebel and Staff Sgt. Pace P. Payne, who were buried in 1985.

The nine airmen, flying in a B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed “Naughty but Nice,” had orders to carry out a bombing mission over Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, on June 26, 1943.

The B-17 was damaged by anti-aircraft fire and shot down by a Japanese fighter plane, the personnel office said.

The military said a 10th man, the navigator and only survivor of the crash — 2nd Lt. Jose L. Holguin — was held as a prisoner of war until September 1945.

In 1949 U.S. military personnel in the area were led by local citizens to a B-17 crash site on New Britain island. Remains were recovered but could not be identified given the technology of the time.

The remains were buried as “unknown” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. Holguin returned to the area In 1982 and 1983 and located the crash site.

In 1985 the remains at Punchbowl were exhumed and identified as Knott, Payne, Garcia, Peattie and Griebel.

In 2001 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, headquartered in Hawaii, excavated the crash site and found additional human remains and crew-related equipment.

Scientists from JPAC used dental comparisons and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA to make identifications.