Charles Feucht

Charles "Buddy" Feucht (1919, Reynoldsburg, Ohio – 1943) was an American World War II pilot, who aboard a B-24 Liberator was a part of a formation looking for Japanese ships during a violent thunderstorm. His plane separated from the others to take a closer look at the water below, but Feucht and the rest of his nine-man crew vanished. Feucht's remains however have been found in the wreckage in New Guinea in 2002 and finally identified through the DNA comparison in 2006.

Military service

Second Lieutenant Charles "Buddy" French was one of nine members of a U.S. Army Air Corps B-24 crew which left Dodudura, New Guinea on November 4, 1943. Their mission was to find a convoy of Japanese ships rumored to be in the area. Later that evening, the crew reported back that they had scored three hits on the convoy's ships and were heading back to their base. The crew was relatively inexperienced and had incomplete maps that did not show every mountain peak in the area. Their last radio contact came at 1:20 a.m. on November 5. French and the other crew members were declared MIA.citation|last=Harden|first=Mike|title=WWII Aviator's remains come home 63 years after fatal mission|date=May 14, 2006|url=http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/contentbe/dispatch/2006/05/14/20060514-B1-00.html|accessdate=2007-11-14|newspaper=The Columbus Dispatch|location=Columbus, Ohio]

Recovery

French was declared dead in 1946.citation|last=Carmen|first=Barbara|title=WW II Soldier's remains to rest in Reynoldsburg|newspaper=The Columbus Dispatch|date=April 1, 2006|location=Columbus, Ohio|url=http://www.dispatch.com/live/contentbe/dispatch/2006/04/01/20060401-C1-04.html|accessdate=2007] Almost 60 years later, in 2002, a man foraging for food in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea found the wreckage of a B-24 bomber convert|11000|ft|km|0 above the ocean. The following year the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command reached the site and collected evidence. French's body was found, still wearing the St. Christopher medal he had been given by his girlfriend, Reba. His body was identified through DNA analysis and returned to his family in 2006.

References