Re: Buried in Germany, Pilot's Remains Finally Come Home

Date: May 27, 2004

"40 years later, pilot back home
Pilot died during WWII, buried in German field by farmer.

By Press-Telegram wire reports

TULSA, Okla. - A pilot killed when his P-51 fighter was shot down over Germany during World War II will be laid to rest Friday alongside his brother, who died less than three weeks after he did in 1944.

The remains of Lt. William Lewis were exhumed from a field near Oberhof, Germany, by a U.S. recovery team that spent a month excavating before returning the bones to his daughter, Sharon Cross of Houston.

"He'd been there ... 58 years, and I thought maybe I should leave well enough alone,' said Cross, who was an infant when her father died. "But a retired military man told me, 'No soldier wants his bones left in a foreign country. You bring him home.' So that's what we've done.'

A German farmer, Adelbert Wolf, buried Lewis after the Sept. 11, 1944, crash, marked the grave and tended to the site for decades. Around 25 years ago, after Wolf notified an American about the grave, a U.S. delegation was allowed to visit the site. But the delegation was not allowed to exhume the body.

A U.S. recovery team was finally allowed to excavate the site in 2002.

Lewis' final resting place will be alongside his brother, Ted, who died Sept. 30, 1944, in a bomber crash near Walla Walla, Wash. Alongside Ted Lewis' grave is a stone long-reserved for Bill Lewis, inscribed "Missing in Action.'

Friday's services will include full military honors.

"I want it to be a joyous occasion,' Cross said. "It's time, after 60 years.'

© 2004 Long Beach Press Telegram
Los Angeles Newspaper Group"