{"id":14039,"date":"2017-12-29T08:07:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T08:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=14039"},"modified":"2020-05-27T06:18:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T06:18:39","slug":"uw-search-team-recovers-remains-airman-missing-since-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/uw-search-team-recovers-remains-airman-missing-since-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"UW search team recovers remains of airman missing since WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
1st Lt. Frank Fazekas\u2019 name remains on the wall of the missing at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, but a rosette will be placed next to it to show he has been found. COURTESY OF DANIELLE ROUBROEKS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s likely just a matter of months until 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas, a husband, father and U.S. Army Air Forces pilot, is laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it has been more than 70 years since Fazekas\u2019 P-47 Thunderbolt crashed in northern France, just over a week before the D-Day invasion in 1944. For nearly all that time those facts were in question, and Fazekas was listed among the missing from World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the case anymore. With help from the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison\u2019s\u00a0Missing in Action (MIA) Recovery and Identification Project<\/a>, the U.S. Department of Defense POW\/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA<\/a>) has officially changed Fazekas\u2019 status to accounted for.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe would certainly love to be there when he gets his military honors at Arlington,\u201d says\u00a0Ryan Wubben<\/a>, medical director of\u00a0UW Med Flight<\/a>\u00a0and a member of the UW\u2013Madison team. \u201cThat, I think, is what we\u2019d see as the culmination of our work. That closes these two years that we really put in for Lt. Fazekas \u2014 and for his son, Frank.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This summer was the second in which members of UW\u2013Madison\u2019s MIA Project spent weeks carefully excavating the crash site in a farm field near the French village of Buysscheure.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, they\u00a0found the likely wreck location<\/a>\u00a0through historical detective work, and that excavation recovered the P-47\u2019s heavy .50-caliber machine guns \u2014 with serial numbers that confirmed they\u2019d found the right plane \u2014 and possible human remains. The Wisconsin crew worked closely with DPAA lead forensic anthropologist William Belcher, Belgian interpreter and WWI and WWII historian Danielle Roubroeks, and the pilot\u2019s son (also named Frank Fazekas), who made the trip to France to shovel and sift with the excavators.<\/span><\/p>\n

In July and August of 2017, the group \u2014 at the request of DPAA, and with continued support from Belcher and Roubroeks \u2014 returned to the French field, clearing hay from the crash site and reopening the excavation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back was based on a lot of factors,\u201d says Charles Konsitzke, associate director of the\u00a0UW Biotechnology Center<\/a>\u00a0and facilitator for the MIA Project. \u201cDPAA certainly considered the wishes of the survivors, and what the family members felt best for their loved ones. We were happy to return.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
This P-47 Thunderbolt was flown by the 22nd Fighter Squadron \u2014 the squadron of 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas. COURTESY OF RYAN WUBBEN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Archaeologist and forensic anthropologist\u00a0Leslie Eisenberg<\/a>, an honorary fellow in the UW\u2013Madison anthropology department, guided Konsitzke, Wubben, anthropology faculty and students, and DPAA representatives in a careful excavation. Using a backhoe and filling and painstakingly screening buckets of dirt, they dug through more than five meters of soil and clay to reach the base of the crash site.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t find many of the kind of large, recognizable pieces of the plane I expected, and that speaks to the nature of the crash,\u201d Eisenberg says. \u201cBut every piece of metal we took out this summer was carefully cleaned and examined.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, Eisenberg says, the excavation yielded the remains that were turned over to the local French police, who maintained an evidentiary chain of custody until U.S. military personnel could take possession of the remains and return them to the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnalysis of those remains was conducted by Defense Department experts in the United States, and that\u2019s how they make a DNA match and definitively determine it was Lt. Fazekas who died in his plane,\u201d Eisenberg says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Serial numbers on the machine guns recovered from the excavation in 2016 matched records from the plane flown by 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas. COURTESY OF DANIELLE ROUBROEKS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The successful collaboration between UW\u2013Madison and the military in 2016 and 2017 was one of the first of its kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a pilot project, it helped pave the way for additional partnerships and other novel arrangements between DPAA and academic institutions like ours,\u201d Konsitzke says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Department of Defense has since entered into similar arrangements with East Carolina University, the University of New Orleans and the University of Maryland, and UW\u2013Madison\u2019s MIA Project is ready to take on another case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned so much over the course of two years,\u201d says Konsitzke. \u201cWe all feel that this is a worthy cause, and that we have experience and expertise to do it well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fazekas\u2019 name remains on the wall of the missing at the\u00a0Ardennes American Cemetery<\/a>\u00a0in Belgium, but a rosette will be placed next to it to show he has been found.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s surprising to go to these cemeteries in Europe and see just how many of those guys are still unaccounted for,\u201d Wubben says. \u201cTo see the way the community in France responded and the way Frank Fazekas, the son, responded to this, you can\u2019t help but think about looking for the next case.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s likely just a matter of months until 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas, a husband, father and U.S. Army Air Forces pilot, is laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. But it has been more than 70 years since Fazekas\u2019 P-47 Thunderbolt crashed in northern France, just over a week before the D-Day invasion in 1944. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342-300x205.jpg",300,205,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",95,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",500,342,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",96,66,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/MIA-fazekas-memorial-500x342.jpg",150,103,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Other<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}