WWII Airman’s Body Moved Three Times Before His Family Found Peace

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Speaker 1: And we returned to our American stories. Up next, another story from our regular contributor and supporter of the show and recipient of our Great American Storyteller Award, Joy Neil Kidney, who listens on who our terrific iHeart affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa. Three of Joy’s five uncles lost their lives in World War Two, a tremendous loss for Leora. Her grandmother. Joy has dedicated her life to preserving their memory, and today she shares the story of how Daniel Wilson was found and buried three times. Take it away, Joy.

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Speaker 2: Danny Wilson came home on furlough in April of nineteen forty four after becoming an Army fighter pilot. While home, he had his picture taken at a studio the silver pilot swings and gold bars of a second lieutenant pinned to his dark uniform. It shows him with a solid jaw, broad shoulders, confident, content serious. Dan’s parents, who were tenant farmers near Membourne, Iowa, also posed him for snapshots beside their nineteen forty two plymouth with his sisters and only nephew, Doris. Her first baby Doo in six weeks was tucked behind Darlene and Danny so her condition wouldn’t show. Danny held Darlene’s eighteen month old son in the crook of his arm like a football. By then, all five Wilson brothers were serving two in the Navy, three in the Army Air Force. The middle brother, who was Darling’s twin, had been listed as missing in action in New Guinea since late November. When Doris learned later that year that Danny had received his overseas orders, she wrote, Danny, you take darn good care of you and get back home as soon as possible. We don’t want any heroes in the family, just all of us home. He was assigned to the fifteenth Thereforce at Foggia, Italy, fourteenth Fighter Group, thirty seventh Fighter Squadron the pilot of a P thirty eight Lightning, but on his nineteenth mission on February nineteenth, nineteen forty five, he was reported as missing in action over Austria. Danny Wilson had been missing nearly a year when the telegram was delivered to his parents in January nineteen forty six that there was evidence that he’d been killed in action. The same week, authorities announced that his brother Dale would likely not be found, and they had made an official declaration of day. Just the August before, the youngest Wilson brother had been killed in training in Texas when the engine of his P forty threw a rod and exploded. Three of their five sons lost during the war. How does a family survive that their father clave died in October nineteen forty six of a stroke and a broken heart. After Danny Wilson’s remains had been recovered from a small town in the Alps, Leora was left with a decision about whither to have Danni’s remains sent home to Iowa or buried in an American cemetery overseas. She couldn’t face another funeral, and Dale likely would never be found, she reluctantly signed the papers for burial overseas. Decades later, the daughter born to Doris asked for Dan Wilson’s casualty file. It contained so much information. The family had never learned who buried him after the crash, who found him later? How could you be sure the remains they located were even his? I was the first to comb through the military records, where I learned that a British graves Registration team had captured German Dulog records. Austria was divided into four occupation zones after the war. Schwanberg was in the British zone. The British forwarded information that American named Daniel S. Wilson had been buried in the small town of Schwanberg, Austria, which was Nazi territory during the war. An American team traveled through the Alps to locate downed Allied airmen. They interviewed townspeople in Schwanberg who were involved in the burial of this Allied pilot. I was the first to contact the mayor of the village where Dan Wilson was killed, the first to see a copy of his death certificate in German, the first to weep at the photo of his wrecked fighter plane on page forty one in the Schwanberg History book. In July nineteenth forty six, Schwanberg officials made a declaration that on the date Daniel Wilson was declared missing, four planes had attacked the railroad station. One of them hit a telegraph pole and crashed in a forest, demolishing the two engine plane. The plane was removed by members of the German Wehrmacht, who thoroughly searched the young dead American flying lieutenant and kept his ID tags. The Burgermeister signed an official declaration that Lieutenant Daniel S. Wilson had been buried in his uniform in a pine casket provided by the town in the Schwanberg Community cemetery. The grave was marked with a wooden cross and the date of death. Only or people were present at the burial, the inspector or chief of police, the Burgermeister, the grave digger, and the town’s Roman Catholic priest. The declaration noted that the burial cemetery had been held secretly. When his squadron in Italy reported Dan Wilson’s P thirty eight lightning lost, his belongings were inventoried. The flight surgeon had filled out a form on Lieutenant Wilson, adding good Man good pilot. That August, a report of investigation area’s search form was completed for unknown X seventy three forty one. This unknown was believed to be Daniel Wilson, but because his ID tags were not with the remains, positive identification was not allowed. At this point, both the chief of Police and the Burgermeister were interviewed for this report. Unknown X seventy three forty one was disinterred that day from the Schwanberg Cemetery to be reburied in the new temporary US Military cemetery at set of Old, France. By September that Unknown had positively been identified as Daniel S. Wilson by the following information on the missing aircraft report for the plane of which Lieutenant Wilson was the sole occupant, a German new lag record indicating that Lieutenant Wilson was buried in a civilian cemetery from which X seventy three forty one was disinterred. The cross over the grave where he had been buried was marked Daniel S. Wilson and the date of death, the statement by a civilian that the ID tags for Lieutenant Wilson had been present, enabling the marking of the cross, that Lieutenant Wilson was the only American buried in the Schwanberg Cemetery, and the lawn remark on the clothing of X seventy three forty one agreed with the initial and last four digits of Lieutenant Wilson’s military number. On September ninth, nineteen forty six in the temporary cemetery in France. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Dan Wilson was reburied between two unknowns. A chaplain conducted the service after the permanent Lorraine American cemetery had been prepared. Years later, there was another similar ceremony when all of those in the temporary cemetery were reburied, including Dan Wilson. The book Crosses in the Wind is a poignant story of the men who followed combat in its on D Day, processing hundreds of casualties. The graves Registration teams were responsible for the massive task of collecting fallen soldiers, identifying and preparing them for burial, and for forwarding personal effects to their families at home. It’s the first hand account of the dreadful but important job they undertook to care for our war casualties. These teams located far flung casualties even after the war was over. This is an important piece of history, important also decades later to Danny Wilson’s family back in Iowa, comforted by the care taken with his remains. In nineteen ninety seven, his sisters Doris and Darlene widowed farm women, nearly eighty years old by then, were their first in the family to visit the Lorraine American Cemetery. They were gratified with the assurance that the remains buried there in plot d Row five graves seven indeed belonged to their young brother, Danny, one of the three Wilson brothers who lost their lives during World War II. Let us never forget.

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Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Monte Montgomery. And a special thanks as always to Joy Neil Kidney. Three of Joy’s five uncles were lost in World War Two. And what a loss for her grandmother Leora, who, by the way, Joy writes so beautifully about and has told stories about right here on this show. And the idea that these eighty year old farm widows would go to Lorraine Cemetery, the American Cemetery in France, to visit that grave of Lieutenant Danny Wilson, Well, one day I hope to make the same trip. That’s my mother’s brother is buried, John Lappadula is buried there too. The story of finding Daniel Wilson here on our American Stories