World War II Soldier from Oakland County Finally Comes Home

Seventy-two years ago, a brave 22-year-old Michigander in the Army Air Forces lost his life during a bombing mission in Germany in World War II. After all of that time, his remains have been identified and he will be returned to his family for a burial with full military honors, The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Friday.

Robert W. Ward, 22, was an Army Air Forces second lieutenant. His remains will be returned to his hometown of Pontiac, where he's set to be buried at Oak Hill Cemetery at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 1.

Scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory were able to use forensic identification tools to examine mitochondrial DNA from Ward's remains. His DNA matched that of a niece.

“I didn’t know him very well, but I remember when they knocked on the door over the Christmas holiday (to announce his death), and a bombardier who did survive the crash came to see my grandparents some years later,” Robert Ward's nephew, David Ward, 78 of Enfield, NH told The Oakland Press.

On Dec. 23, 1944, Ward and eight other crew members crashed after they were struck by enemy fire while on a bombing mission against enemy forces near Philippsweiler, Germany. Ward was assigned to the 559th Bombardment Squadron, the 387th Bombardment Group, and the 9th Air Force. He was a co-pilot of a B-26C Marauder.

The other seven crew members parachuted to safety and survived the crash. One crewman was captured by enemy forces, and allegedly died in captivity. His remains have been returned to U.S. custody.

A Department of Defense (DoD) team traveled to Philippsweiler to interview Germans who remembered an American war-time crash in April 2009. The team observed the possible crash site for remains.

Between June 2010 and July 2011, two DoD recovery teams discovered human remains and aircraft wreckage after they excavated the suspected crash site.

Sixteen million Americans served in World War II, and more than 400,000 of them died. Today, more than 73,000 soldiers are unaccounted for from the war.

“We have a stone already with his name on it. I guess in some ways, they went through an awful lot of effort to find someone who died 70 years ago. It’s important to honor people, but after a certain point in time there might not be a lot of people left who remember," David Ward said to The Oakland Press. "But Ward is an old family in Pontiac, so we’ll have to see."