News-Info-Alerts

Re: 59 Years Later, Unknown Grave May Be Brother's

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: July 29, 2003

"Man hopes DNA test will help him learn fate of brother

By Mark Scarborough
Central Wisconsin Sunday

WISCONSIN RAPIDS - Paul Lubben, 73, was in eighth grade when he last saw his older brother, U.S. Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. John Lubben.
At age 28, John Lubben went missing Dec. 12, 1944, as he piloted an airplane attacking Wollstein, Germany.

Today, Paul Lubben of Wisconsin Rapids is a little closer to finding his long-lost brother, thanks to Manfred Klein, a soldier in Germany's Army Reserve, who thinks he has located John Lubben in an unknown soldier's grave at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium.

"I always wondered if he would be found," Lubben said. "When we got the first word, it was really a shock."

On Tuesday, Lubben will ask U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau, for his help in arranging the testing needed to prove Klein right. Obey will visit Wisconsin Rapids on Tuesday to talk about prescription drugs and Medicare reform.
Klein spent two years sifting through military records and searching for archeological clues and shared his findings in an extensive report forwarded this summer to Paul Lubben and previously shared with U.S. military officials.

He suggests DNA testing based on the dental records of an unknown soldier found in May 1975 near the border of Belgium and Germany, as well as bits of a bomber aircraft found at the same site in 2001 by Klein and his volunteer crews.
The dental records of the unknown soldier match those kept on John Lubben during his service, according to Klein. Dental records of two other soldiers lost with Lubben also match records kept for two unidentified soldiers recovered at the same place and time as the unknown soldier suspected of being John Lubben.

Time is short for a DNA match, however, because John Lubben's last surviving siblings, Paul and his sister, Margaret Hafermann of Wisconsin Rapids, are both in their 70s.

"It is recommended to exhume those unknown soldiers ... and do DNA testing on their remains," Klein wrote in his report. "Still-living family members are available (for DNA comparison). They should have the right to know what happened to their loved ones."

Lubben also sent requests last week to U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl.
Once Lubben's letter is received, Kohl's office will "likely contact the MIA-POW Office within the Department of Defense on the constituent's behalf, to inform them of the case and inquire whether DNA testing is available, according to the facts of the case," Kohl's press secretary Lynn Becker wrote Wednesday in an e-mail.

More than 78,000 servicemen still are unaccounted for from World War II, according to the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii.
The mission there is to "search for, recover and identify remains of American military personnel," according to the laboratory's Web site, http:cilhi.army.mil.

© 2003 Gannett Wisconsin Online"