Soldier's remains returned after 65 years
By: George Moore , Record-Journal staff
Letters that were returned to John Moore after his brother James Moore, in photo, who served in the Army Air Corps, was reported missing in action during World War II. His remains have been found in the wreckage of his B-24 on the island of New Guinea.
After 65 years of wondering about his brother who disappeared in World War II, John Moore will finally have closure.
His brother, James Moore, was a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps when he went missing in action in November of 1943. A tail gunner, he was among 11 crew members of a B-24 that crashed in the mountains of New Guinea, an island north of Australia.
For decades, the family didn't know much about what happened, but in 2001 it learned that the plane had been discovered. In 2004 the military took DNA samples from John Moore and his sister Mary in an effort to identify James Moore's remains.
Two months ago, John Moore's daughter Maureen got the news everyone had been waiting for: The military had identified James Moore's remains and will return them for burial this summer. John Moore, 89, said this development will put a close to a decades-long saga.
"It's final," he said.
He first learned of his brother's disappearance while serving in the Marine Corps during World War II.
"We used to correspond when I was in the Marine Corps and then we got the letters back that he was missing in action," he said. "It was quite a shock."
John Moore, who lives in Utah, is visiting his daughter in Branford, but he lived in Wallingford for decades and raised his family there.
Maureen Moore Vener said she does not know what inspired her to call the military on May 20 to inquire about her lost uncle. She got chills in her spine, she said, when the woman she spoke to told her the news. May 20 was also the second anniversary of her mother Mary Ann Rish Moore's death.
"Finally to be able to put my uncle to rest properly is pretty overwhelming," she said. "It's a feeling of peace coming to me finally, I guess, and especially to my dad."
It is not clear how the military retrieved the remains. A letter to the Moore family in 2005 from the Army's Repatriation and Family Affairs Division stated that the plane was lodged in a gully and that it would be too dangerous to attempt to get to it.
The military first found the plane in 1984, but it was only in 2001 that the Moore family learned that it had been found. Maureen Moore Vener said she looks forward to talking with military officials to resolve unanswered questions about what happened. Until 2001, the family had no idea the plane was intact at all.
"The story we were raised with was that (James Moore) died in flight and the plane had crashed in the ocean," said Lynne Valente, Maureen's cousin.
The family would learn the truth soon after Valente's father and James Moore's brother, David, began inquiring about whether there were memorials honoring the B-24's crew. The father and daughter eventually connected with other families with ties to the plane's crew. Some of those families were investigating what happened to the plane. In 2001, Valente received an e-mail stating that the plane had been found on land.
Over the years, Valente networked with the families and military officials to have the remains of the 11 crew members returned and identified. Valente said she has "bittersweet" feelings about this final chapter, since her father isn't around to hear about it. David Moore died in 2003.
"It's a bag of emotions," she said.
While the remains will be presented to John Moore and other family members in Branford, the family plans to bury them in Woburn, Mass., where James Moore and his siblings grew up.
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