WW II casualty is laid to rest
60 years after he was shot down in the South Pacific, airman's body returns home and is buried in Lincoln National Cemetery
By Stanley Ziemba and Jennifer Skalka Tribune staff reporters
Army Air Forces Sgt. Arthur Andrew Merzlock was laid to rest near his Joliet home Tuesday, 60 years after being killed in action in the South Pacific and thanks to a half-century of efforts by the military to retrieve and identify his remains.
More than 50 family members, friends and acquaintances of the aviator were on hand at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood to watch as an Army honor guard carried Merzlock's flag-draped coffin to a funeral reception pavilion.
There, Rev. George Klepec, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Joliet, and a longtime family friend, blessed the coffin. Soldiers, dressed in dark green uniforms and black berets, fired a 21-gun salute, followed by the playing of taps. The burial of the airman, who died at the age of 26, provided closure for the family.
It also closed another chapter in the history of U.S. efforts to account for its missing servicemen.
"I find it remarkable and reassuring that the U.S. government takes upon itself the responsibility of bringing lost and missing military servicemen home to their final resting place," said John Horvat, 67, of Joliet, who joined seven other nephews and nieces and Merzlock's three surviving sisters-in-law at the service.
The government goes to great lengths to identify the remains of those who serve, spending at least $54 million this year alone on investigations, said Army Maj. Rumi Nielson-Green, public affairs officer for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.
It is a process, Nielson-Green said, that can take years of following tips from eyewitnesses and combing former battlefields and crash sites around the world. The command works in tandem with the casualty offices for each branch of the armed forces and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Rockville, Md. The former tracks down a soldier's next of kin in an effort to match DNA with that of a relative. The latter does the actual matching.
Nielson-Green`s office holds some 900 sets of remains from servicemen who served in conflicts dating to the Civil War.
"We never close a case until we've got them identified," she said. "We never throw our arms up and give up. Never."
Although remarkable, Merzlock's case is not unique, Nielson-Green said. Government officials believe that of the nearly 8,000 people still missing from World War II, about 50 percent are recoverable, she said.
Merzlock's remains, according to Army records, were first discovered in 1949, along with those of his five fellow B-25 bomber crewmembers, by the Army's Grave Registration Service on the Australian-governed island of New Britain. The discovery came five years after their plane was struck Jan. 20, 1944, by enemy ground fire during a mission over the Japanese-controlled island.
Lacking technology to identify the crewmembers, the remains of all six were transported to Nebraska where they were buried in a mass grave at Ft. McPherson National Cemetery.
In 1983, farmers clearing land for citrus crops uncovered more remains at the crash site on New Britain. The find was reported to the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory, which sent out a recovery team and brought the remains to Hawaii. They remained there until 1995 when they were taken to the DNA Identification Lab.
In 1998, Horvat, as Merzlock's relative, was tracked down by the U.S. Army's casualty office and asked to provide samples of his blood so DNA tests could determine if any of the remains were those of his uncle. Mitochondrial DNA, inherited from the mother's side of the family, often provides a solid match. Horvat's mother, Elizabeth, was one of Merzlock's sisters.
Horvat received word this year that DNA tests confirmed the identity of remains found in 1949 and 1983. With that, arrangements were made last month to send the remains for a proper military burial.
Merzlock was born in Joliet on Oct. 22, 1917--one of six brothers and two sisters--to Croatian immigrants Joseph and Anna Merzlock. After graduating high school and working in a wallpaper mill, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in July 1940.
A highly decorated aerial gunner, he flew 50 missions over the South Pacific before his plane was shot down while bombing enemy airfields. His five brothers, plus a stepbrother and stepsister also served in the military in World War II and returned home safely.
Horvat's late mother was notified of her brother's death from the War Department and attended Merzlock's burial in Nebraska in 1949, Horvat said.
"At the time, we thought that would be his final burial," Horvat said, adding that he can recall his uncle telling him about his aerial exploits while on furlough in Joliet.
Catherine Merzlock also remembers Andrew Merzlock well. She grew up in his neighborhood and married his brother Joseph. Now 82 and a widow, she recalled him Tuesday as the friendly boy she called Andy.
"It was beautiful, very touching," she said of the ceremony. "I can't ever get used to hearing taps ... but it was really nice."
And Leona Merzlock, 75, a widow who was married for 40 years to Merzlock's brother Peter, said, "We're just glad that he is back here in the state where he was born."
© 2004, Chicago Tribune