Identity of frozen airman due this week

[Paul]

A military lab studying the remains of a World War II airman found in a California glacier expects to identify the man as early as this week.

Forensic scientists on Oahu have been examining the airman's clothes, teeth and DNA since he was found in October to pinpoint who he is.

Army Staff Sgt. Erika Ruthman said the experts expected to have an answer sometime around the first week of February.

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command plans to post a notice on its Web site when it identifies the man, Ruthman said. The command is taking the unusual step because of strong public interest in the case, she said.

The memo may not give the man's name, however, because it will be up to the surviving relatives to decide whether to release that information.

Ruthman said scientists at the command's lab on Hickam Air Force Base are now taking a look at all the evidence they've collected to determine if there are any gaps in their knowledge about the man.

Lab officials said in November that they narrowed down the possibilities to four men. All were on board a U.S. Army navigational training flight that disappeared in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on Nov. 18, 1942.

The AT-7 plane, which took off from Sacramento, was piloted by 2nd Lt. William A. Gamber, 23, of Fayette, Ohio. It also had three aviation cadets aboard: Ernest Munn, 23, of St. Clairsville, Ohio; John Mortenson, 25, of Moscow, Idaho; and Leo M. Mustonen, 22, of Brainerd, Minn.

Star Bulletin

 

[Paul]

Update: ID determined

Remains found in a California mountain range last fall are those of an airman from Minnesota whose plane went missing during World War II, a friend of the man's family said Saturday.

The U.S. Department of Defense determined the remains are those of Leo Mustonen, who was 22-years-old when the plane he was in crashed 64 years ago in the Sierra Nevada mountains, a family friend from Baxter, Marjorie Freeman, told The Associated Press. Freeman said a niece of Mustonen's called her after being notified by defense officials. CNN also reported the identification, citing nieces of Mustonen.

Last October, authorities recovered a well-preserved body encased in ice in Kings Canyon National Park. Military anthropologists narrowed their options to four men who flew out of Sacramento's Mather Field the night the plane disappeared: Mustonen, pilot William Gamber, 23, of Ohio, and aviation Cadets Ernest Munn, 23, of Ohio, and John Mortenson, 25, of Idaho.

Experts working at Hickam Air Force Base in Oahu, Hawaii, were able to read a name on a faded badge on the serviceman's clothing but declined to reveal it until the identity was confirmed through DNA.

"I had a gut feeling it was him. I just knew it," said Freeman, who grew up near Mustonen's family and was three years behind him in school. She has been in contact with Mustonen's nieces, Leane Mustonen Ross and Ona Lea Mustonen, who live in Florida.

Leane Mustonen Ross didn't return calls left on her cell phone Saturday.

Leo Mustonen, a 1938 Brainerd High School graduate, left the central Minnesota city to join the war effort in 1942.

West Central Tribune