Battery Corporal Willis S. Cole Military Museum

                                 A 501-(c)-3 Washington State Non-Profit Corporation

                      13444 124th Ave NE, Kirkland, WA 98034-5403  U.S.A.

                                        www.ww1.org - ww1@ww1.org

                                 Tel:  (425)823-4445  Cell: (509)723-6059

To The Internet Reader:  These two pages are self-explanatory.

                                                                                                         26 February, 2014 

Subject: Misidentified WWII Aviation Dead

Request For DPMO/JPAC To Investigate Situation And DPMO/JPAC’s Refusal To Do So.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this cover letter for the benefit of twelve families. These families each lost a loved on during World War Two, eight of them were lost on 6 September, 1943. For over seventy years they have shared that common bond, even if they had never physically met. Not only did most of the men, leave a mother and father behind, some had wives, and most had siblings. Today, some of these siblings are as old as their mid-90's and others have already passed on, before they could learn the truth about their brothers deaths and the truth about what happened to their true remains, after they had died.

My wife, Carol, and I have been portrayed in the past, by DPMO/JPAC personnel as a “wing nuts” from Washington State, attempting to make money off of our war dead. When, I was attempting to get them to do, what they were supposed to do, at a crash site in France. Their way of insuring they did nothing, was to tell anyone who called them, Senators, Congressional Representatives and the media, that we were totally unqualified to do what we were doing and any one who supported us, would rue the day they did. It has worked, since 1998, and in the copy of the letter in this submission, you will fully understand what I have just indicated.

I am very proud of my books, especially the first one which was hard bound and doing fairly well in sales, until I made a major discovery. My book was 99.9 percent, new military history concerning a dual Congressional Medal Of Honor B-17, the “Lady Jeannette.” Except it was also 50 percent wrong at the same time. As someone who is noted for not stopping when hitting a research barrier, there was one small question that I could not answer while researching the book. One family, in a small village a few kilometers away, insisted that two men from that crash site had come to their home in the early morning. Yet, everyone agreed, American B-17s did not fly missions in the middle of the night, especially the 452nd Bomb Group, stationed in England.

However, everyone agreed, by using strong historical documents, I had to convince the greatest doubters, that I had searched every possible historical document available in our Nation Archives and various archives around the Untied States. Carol and I, made several trips a year to Europe and spent weeks in the area around that crash site, interviewing every French eyewitness we could find and in the end, everyone agreed the book, basically an autobiographical laying out of the research required to prove something that no one had ever done before, was consider by many to be an excellent read. So much so, that one location in France, sold more of the books than any other seller. Each time, we went to France, we would have to take another dozen of the books for them to sell.

One day, while visiting the lady, who was selling the books at the South African Memorial in the Somme Region of France, I asker her how she was selling so many of my books, when few came even close. She told me, that one person was buying most of them and that it was Tony, (I will not include his last name here) and that Tony, who was a military history professor at one of the leading military schools in England had told her, “I am giving Sam’s books as prizes at the end of each quarter to the best military students I have.” He added, “She knew, he had written many military history books concerning wars and frankly, Mr. Cole’s book is the best researched military history book, I have ever read! And, when I give the book to the student, I tell them, they should not consider themselves a military historian until they equaled the quality of Mr. Cole’s research.” She ended, by telling me, Tony, told her, “none of my books were ever researched as well as Mr. Cole’s, because when he reached a point were he thought, he could go no further, he stopped and it was obvious, that Mr. Cole did not.”

The above is self-centered and I consider it, one of the best accounts of how I approach problems, either in my career or during my military research. I talked to Tony at Avril Williams Bed And Breakfast, located in the northern Somme one time after that. Carol and I, were staying there for a few days and Tony was one of the other guests. We discussed, why I had removed the book from the market, and I explained to him, I discovered it was right, but wrong. Because, it was a Top Secret B-24 that had crashed, where every military historian in Europe and the Untied States was positive it was the B-17, that had crashed near Tincture-Boucle, the Department of the Somme.

I had just discovered, that it was a B-24 that crashed there and the B-17? Well, I had just found its true crash site 138 miles away and the truth was, the Medal Citations were completely wrong, for the way the Citations described the two men awarded the Medal died, was the way the men in the Top Secret B-24 had died, and the truth of the dual Congressional Medal Of Honor B-17 was completely different. Instead of diving toward earth and blowing up once, then hitting the ground, blowing up again and destroying the plane and three men inside the plane was an exact description of the B-24 crash.

After discovering the true crash site of the Dual Congressional Medal Of Honor B-17, I again went through their strong historical documents concerning their death, their IDPFs, or Individual Deceased Personnel File and found, the remains inventoried as being found in each of their four temporary graves no longer matched their condition of death. If, all the bones from those four temporary graves had been placed on one table, there was no duplication of any bone and yet, I had learned from the French who had visited the crash site on 9 November, 1944, the day the men died and they stood with one voice, in describing what they had observed.

The “Fortress” had flown over their village, it was too low to pass over the hill, just to the west of the village, so it turned 180 degrees and flew back the way it had came. Three kilometers away, it began to sink into the village forest and disappeared into the forest and a very short fire burned there for a few minutes. The first people to reach the crash site were two villages who had been working in nearby field. They had found the complete bodies of the two pilots sitting in their seats in the cockpit of the broken apart “Fortress.” They also found one man lying between two broken parts of the “Fortress,” and they thought, he had bailed out too late and landed in the flash fire zone. Within the hour, they had helped the Americans who were stationed in their village, to remove the three complete bodies, except for the heads of the pilots, which had been damaged by the tree limbs that broke into the cockpit before the “Fortress” had came to rest.

Shortly, thereafter, the French were ordered to leave the crash site and stay away until the guards were removed and they would be shot, if they tried to approach the crash site before then.

After learning the truth of the situation of the deaths of the three mentioned as dying in the Medal Citation, completely in a different way at their true crash sites, I contacted the earlier Mortuary Affairs Organization and flew back to Washington to present my research. As it their own strong official documents proved, there was an extreme difference between the true death of these two American heroes and what was included in the Citation telling the story of their supposed death.

I was told, to forget about it, they believed they had died at the Tincture-Boucle crash site, as they had strong historical documentation proving to them, that had to be the truth. For nearly two years, I sent more information, as I found it, and they refused to even visit the crash site at Hattonville, the Department of the Meuse, France. Because that “wing nut and his wife” were again, attempting to make money from our fallen war dead.

In May, 2000, while clearing the site of the winters fallen tree limbs and insuring the fence I had installed around the crash site was still keeping the wild boars from wallowing in the impression left in the clay floor of the forest, that the “Lady Jeannette” did crash extremely differently, than the Medal Citations claimed, the Mayor of Hattonville and myself, uncovered an undamaged American Identity Tag. After cleaning the clay from the ID Tag, it was the Identity Tag of the Congressional Medal Of Honor Awardee, 1st Donald J. Gott, the pilot of the “Lady Jeannette,” the dual Congressional Medal Of Honor B-17. Within minutes a second discovery was made, it was a fragment of a skull from just above and behind the right ear. Realizing that now, we had to indisputable, strong historical items, we took them to the Mortuary Affairs Office in Germany and turned them over.

The next day, we were met at Hattonville, by a representative of Mortuary Affairs, who visited the site with us and agreed, if their complete bodies were not in their strong historical documented IDPF documents, then they must still be at the crash site. I had found several of the Americans here in the USA, who had were stationed in Hattonville, at the time of the crash. None admitted being at the crash site and seeing the three complete bodies and the torn-apart remains of the tail gunner who had been hanging under the tail of the B-17 as it lowered into the large oaks that the forest consists of. I have found evidence of the location of his death, as I found a helmet flap from his helmet, that a crew survivor had told me, he was wearing when he got trapped under the tail. The flap was bent into a clam shell shape and he could not have lived though that impact.

Later in 2000, Carol and I, were informed by Mortuary Affairs, that they would be conducting a full site recovery in February, of 2000 and I could be present for that work. I made reservations for the round trip flight and was ready to leave, when they called and told me, they had an emergency recovery, so they had to cancel the planed visit to the Hattonville crash site.

I heard nothing for several years, when I accidentally learned from a Gott relative, when I called them to give them a negative update, that they had been contacted by the new JPAC organization and if, they would agree to keep it a secret from the Coles, the other survivors of the crash and the families of all of the crew, they would conduct a full military honors burial service at Lt. Gott’s grave site, as their MDNA sample had proved the skull fragment had came from him. The terms, included flying in all relatives at government expense for this secret burial service and it did happen. If, I had known, I would have attended, at least two crew survivors would have attended. But, we were “wing nuts” attempting to make money from our military dead. If, you wish to learn the truth for your self, please call Winona Derrick, at (580)8850-7786 and she will verify it all.

In August, 2006, Caro, and I, were driving to the Air Force Academy to attend a reunion of the 452nd Bomb Group Association. As we were passing through Boise, we stopped at the home of the man who had been the Executive Officer, of the Headquarters of the 563rd Signals Air Warning Battalion, while they were stationed in Hattonville, France, in November, 1944. I had communicated with him several times a year over the past six years. Each time, he gave the exact same answer to my question about the B-17 that had flown over their headquarters and crashed in the village woods. Even, if I told him, how they went to the crash site, and who he was seen leaving with, to go to the crash site. He ended the communication with the same statement, “No B-17 crashed anywhere near Hattonville, while I was there.” During our second conversation, he had told me the name of the lead Medic attached to the Battalion, along with the names of three members of the attached medics. During our first conversation, I had asked for the names, but he told me, he would have to look them up and give them to me when I called back on our scheduled time, three days later.

As soon, as I hung up on the conversation with him, I immediately called the numbers he had give me and I was able to talk to all three men. When I asked them about the B-17 in the woods, each gave me the exact same statement, “No bomber crashed anywhere near Hattonville, while I was there.” Every few months, I would call all four men and none would admit to being at the B-17 crash site. However, of the 83 men in that HQ station, I contacted about one third of them and each and everyone of them, described perfectly, the path of the B-17 as it approached the village, turned 180 degrees over the village and then, flew back toward Germany before settling into the woods in the distance. Two of the men, I was able to contact, were officers in the unit and they told me, that a certain full-bird Colonel had came to the village late the same night, after the bomber had crashed. As a junior officer, he was not privy to what was talked about between that Colonel, his Commander, the Exec. Officer and the Doctor assigned to the unit, who was also a major, as was the XO. He did provide some more information and fully supported what I had found during my several visits to the crash site, since I first discovered it.

When we arrived at the XO’s home, his wife, to whom he was married to for a few years, before he went overseas. She informed me, that he had been lost in Alzheimer, since early June and no longer remembers anything about his previous life. Before we left, we stood on their porch for some time, as I told her about my research and my belief, that the complete remains had been buried at the crash site. I told her, how DPMO/JPAC kept refusing honor the dead at that site by conducting a full recovery operation. Then, just as we were preparing to go to our car and leave for the reunion, she told us, “She knew all about the crash site, that her husband had ben in charge of. He had told her, soon after the war ended, as he had nightmares for some years, concerning what he had done to some of the dead at the crash site. Her husband and the Doctor guided the three medical attachment through the process of digging a hole at the crash site and placing the three dead American aviators in the hole and covering them up.” She went on to say, “That she could see no reason for the bodies not to be dug up from their hidden grave, as no one was left to be hurt after all these years and returned to their loved ones.”

We left Boise amazed to know, that after all the communications, we finally had a direct statement, that proved my theory, that the three men’s complete body had never left the crash site. The medics had divided the collected remains of the man who had been torn-apart by the trees into four Burial Packages, one to account for each of the dead and turned them over to the temporary Limey cemetery for burial. Which fully explained the limited number of remains in each grave, when disinterment for the Final Disposition four years later. to establish an official burial. During the process, they had lost control of the broken fragment from Lt. Gott’s skull and his Identity Tag, which fell where we had found them 54 years later.

Upon our return to our home, I immediately passed the new information to DPMO/JPAC, and again, they told us, it was hearsay from his wife and they would continue to do nothing.

At this point, it should be easily understood, that we have had extensive interaction with DPMO/JPAC over the past 16 years. Each time, they raised the bar on information required and each time we supplied them with more information via email, we felt lucky if we even received an answer. In all that time, we have never had the feeling that DPMO/JPAC personnel were really committed to “accounting for the dead.” They have always appeared to be interested in only, accounting for the best result for them!

Why, you must ask, did you write so much about yourself, when what you are wanting to help the families, which is basically so simple?

Because, as you will read the Commanding General’s letter of reply to another submission, a copy is included in this submission, I want you to realize that my wife and I, have a long standing, previous relationship with DPMO and JPAC and we know, exactly the steps they will go to, to deny these eight families what they and their loved one in graves, not marked as their own, deserve from the Untied States of America and these two organizations. For, to me, obvious internal reasons to protect the truth about their methods of operation.

After another six months delay, these eight families are faced with exactly the same situation the four families of the men who died at the dual Congressional Medal Of Honor crash site. The leadership of both organizations are only interested in protecting their backsides and maintaining the lives they have been enabled to create for themselves, because “Until They Are Home” who will dare question them.

Well, I do question them, these twelve families question them and from the letter you are soon going to read, you will realize that the eight families of the Mohr crew dead, the four families of the Melville crew dead and the families of 1st Lt. Donald J. Gott, Congressional Medal Of Honor, 2nd Lt. William E. Metzger, Jr., Congressional Medal Of Honor, T/Sgt. Robert A. Dunlap, and S/Sgt. Herman Krimmenger have been denied the truth for too long by these two organizations.

And, again, I beg you to pay attention to this situation, even if your position does not provide you with any direct pressure to change the situation. You can talk to the media, who have been warned the “wing nuts’ are still at it. Please do not do it for me, I am just an old “wing nut” military historian who seeks only one end, the truth! We live in a world of lies from our government, and personally, two organizations that have flaunted their assigned mission, as these two have over the past fourteen years for the dual Congressional Medal Of Honor B-17 dead and now, over seven years after learning the truth of the death and misidentification of the four Mohr crew dead and the four Melville crew dead, who are actually buried in a German military cemetery as German miliary dead, I receive from DPMO and JPAC, the enclosed letter, informing the families, in so many words, to just go away and die for heavens sake and let us do, only what we select to do, that will further our careers, you “wing nuts.”

As to myself, I am ready at very shot notice, to appear before any investigating body, either governmental, military, or civilian to defend my research, against their very “cherry picked” excuse for professional research.

If you have any question concerning the enclosed, or if you wish additional information of any kind, please contact me at (509)723-609 and I will work with you, to achieve the truth for these twelve men’s families.

In Remembrance,

(Signed)

Willis S. Cole, Jr.     "Sam"

Executive Director/Curator

Battery Corporal Willis S. Cole Military Museum

P.S.: To save DPMO/JPAC from informing you, that those “wing nuts” museum is a very tiny collection of World War One relics and World War Two relics and it basically inactive at this time, that is all true. As public schools turned to politically correctness, we were no longer able to take our mobile collection to schools several times a years, dress ourselves and several teachers in World War One uniforms and present a program which last as long as six hours. At this time, our activities are conservation of the collection and working with other historians over the internet to help families, such as the twelve discussed, to learn the true history of their death of their loved one, during World War Two, as well as researching the deaths of men killed “Over There” during the “Great War” which we Americans joined in 1917. One of the earliest volunteers was my father, Corporal Willis S. Cole, (Sr.). The person, we named our small, 501-(c)-3 Washington State Non-Profit Incorporated Museum after, upon incorporation in 1991. With luck and old age allowing, in four years and some months, we will be in France following his foot prints across France and Germans and on 11 November, 2018, we will be in the Village Hall of Corney, the Department of the Ardennes, where my father was, exactly one hundred years before.

Modified For The Internet By:  Willis S. Cole, Jr.  "Sam" - Battery Corporal Willis S. Cole Military Museum 23Mar2014   ( 2prt- B&W-SubCvrLtr(2prt-B&W-(1-1.2))