Earlier this month we brought news about Marine
Pfc. George Traver, who was killed during the battle of the Tarawa Atoll in 1943. His body was only recently identified, and preparations made for his return to the U.S. and funeral near Albany, NY.
I've learned since that original post that the return of those, like Pfc. Traver, who have been unidentified for several decades, is a project of the
History Flight:
History Flight is a true non-profit charity in which 96% of donations go directly to pay for program costs to find and recover the 84,000 missing service members from America's wars of the 20th Century.
History Flight is a non-governmental organization dedicated to finding, recovering and repatriating America's war dead to American soil. Over the last ten years History Flight has sent over 100 search and recovery teams all over the world to locate loss sites of missing servicemen and to recover them. History Flight deployed cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary remote-sensing methodologies to find MIA loss sites where more than 500 American Servicemen are still missing.
Through the efforts of History Flight, another fallen hero has returned, Dale Geddes of Grand Island, Nebraska. The Omaha World-Herald reported,
‘Our boy is coming home:’ After 72 years, World War II Marine Dale Geddes will be buried in Grand Island:
The remains of U.S. Marine Corps Pvt. Dale Robert Geddes of Grand Island, who was killed 72 years ago during the World War II Battle of Tarawa, have been positively identified through DNA comparisons and dental records.