Tests on remains at China crash site may yield proof
By DAVID FLICK The Dallas Morning News
His uncle's funeral, if it occurs at all, may be many months away, but Chris Cope is already planning the details.
The service will be at a church near Mr. Cope's Plano home. The music will include "Shenandoah," "Bring Him Home" and "Amazing Grace." He knows whom he will ask to speak. The burial will be at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.
And after taps is played and the American flag on the coffin folded into a neat triangle, the 52-year search for Capt. Troy Gordon Cope will have finally ended.
Chris Cope is sure that end is already in sight.
Mr. Cope was in Dandong, China, over Memorial Day weekend watching a U.S. military recovery team excavate the site where Capt. Cope's F-86 is believed to have crashed after being shot down on Sept. 16, 1952.
The team archaeologist showed him human remains and artifacts that had been found there, which included overshoes that were the same size worn by Capt. Cope.
"When they turned over the boot heel and it was size 8, I knew it was his. I thought I would get emotional, but I wasn't, I was elated," Mr. Cope said. "I knew that I had found my uncle."
Ginger Couden, a spokeswoman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, said officials won't comment on the case until after forensic tests are completed, a process that could take months.
Mr. Cope, however, said members of the team privately told him they were certain the remains were those of Capt. Cope.
Franklin Damann, the team archaeologist, was still in China last week and did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.
If the forensic tests positively identify the remains as those of Capt. Cope, it will end the uncertainty that has haunted the family for half a century.
Capt. Cope was originally reported missing in action during the Korean War after flying a mission along the Yalu River on Korea's border with China. The family later heard rumors that he might have been captured and taken to the Soviet Union.
That story was later discounted.
Six years ago, a businessman returned from China with rubbings from Capt. Cope's dog tags that he had found in a war museum in Dandong, near where the F-86 was last seen.
The Chinese government later said it believed Capt. Cope's plane had crashed into a house near the city and that the captain's body was found in the wreckage and buried at the site where the dog tags had been found.
Earlier this year, the government allowed the U.S. military team access to the site a rare instance of Chinese cooperation on a Korean War case. The operation began May 10 and ended June 8.
During that time, a team of eight U.S. team members, 20 local workers and four Chinese officials produced a trench that eventually measured 18 feet deep, 40 feet wide and 60 feet long.
While the work was proceeding, Chris Cope, 49, a systems consultant, journeyed to China and was allowed to witness the excavation.
Besides the boots, the team found human remains, portions of a pilot's flight suit, a book or magazine and pieces of aircraft with the distinctive yellow markings of an F-86.
On Memorial Day, Chris Cope called from China to tell family members the news.
Johnny Cope, Capt. Cope's son, said he wants to wait for the forensic test results before finally concluding that his father's remains have been recovered.
Still, he said, his cousin's phone call brought some relief.
"There were so many rumors," said Johnny Cope, a retired helicopter pilot who lives in Knoxville, Tenn. "It was good to know he wasn't taken prisoner and wasn't tortured."
The one person Chris Cope didn't call was his father, Carl, Capt. Cope's brother.
He waited until he returned home so he could tell his father the news face to face.
"When I told him, he got emotional, because I hadn't told him I was going to China in the first place," said Chris Cope. "But I said, 'Dad, he's on his way home.' "
Carl Cope said he, too, wants to hear the forensic results before declaring the story at an end.
"Chris says he's real sure, and that makes me hopeful," he said. "But in a situation like this, we've got to be sure."
As recently as a year ago, Carl Cope entertained thoughts that his brother still might be alive.
"I think now I've got to drop those feelings," he said.
In the meantime, he keeps a photograph of his brother on the refrigerator door in his house in Ennis.
"I guess you could say a lot of things remind me of him," he said. "His kids were little when he left and he liked to pitch footballs and baseballs at them.
"We have kids around here, and I think of him every time I see them playing."
E-mail dflick@dallasnews.com
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