In Memory of 1st Lt. James P. Gullion, Paris Texas, KIA 408th Bomber Squadron, 22nd Bomber Group, Heavy

James P. Gullion
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Service # 0-803142
408th Bomber Squadron, 22nd Bomber Group, Heavy 
Entered the Service from: Texas
Died: 25-Feb-46
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery
Manila, Philippines  

Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 338-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Apr 21, 2006  

Media Contact: (703)697-5131 Public/Industry(703)428-0711

Airmen Missing In Action From WWII are Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of eleven U.S. airmen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are Captain Thomas C. Paschal, El Monte, California; First Lieutenant Frank P. Giugliano, New York, New York; First Lieutenant James P. Gullion, Paris, Texas;  Second Lieutenant Leland A. Rehmet, San Antonio, Texas; Second Lieutenant John A. Widsteen, Palo Alto, California, Staff Sergeant Richard F. King, Moultrie, Georgia; Staff Sergeant William Lowery, Republic, Pennsylvania; Staff Sergeant Elgin J. Luckenbach, Luckenbach, Texas.; Staff Sergeant Marion B. May, Amarillo, Texas.; Sergeant Marshall P. Borofsky, Chicago, Illinois; Sergeant Walter G. Harm, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; all U.S. Army Air Forces.

The group remains of the entire crew are to be buried today at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC, as are the individual remains of each man with the exception of King, Giugliano and Widsteen, whose families have elected hometown burials.

On April 16, 1944, Paschal and Widsteen were piloting a B-24J Liberator with the other nine men aboard.  The aircraft was returning to Nadzab, New Guinea after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia.  The plane was last seen off the coast of the island flying into poor weather.

The loss was investigated following the war and a military board concluded that the aircraft had been lost over water and was unrecoverable.

In early 2001 a team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a native of Papua New Guinea who claimed to have found the aircraft crash and recovered identification media for May and Harm.  The team surveyed the site in 2002 and found wreckage that matched Paschal's aircraft tail number along with human remains.  They also took custody of remains previously collected by the villager.

Later that year, two additional JPAC teams excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts. Identification tags were found for Luckenbach, May and Paschal. Other crew-related materials found were consistent with items used by the Army Air Forces around 1944.

Mitochondrial DNA obtained from dental and bone samples was one of the forensic tools used by JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists to identify the airmen.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo [http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo] or call (703)-699-1169.

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Eleven U.S. airmen, including four Texans, killed in the World War II crash of a B-24J Liberator bomber 62 years ago in the South Pacific will be honored in burials at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, 22 April 2006.

The Pentagon's Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced Thursday that the remains of all 11 men had been positively identified and were being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Eight of the men will be buried individually at Arlington with positively identified remains; the families of the other three chose hometown burials. In addition to those individual burials, there will be a burial at Arlington on Friday of "group remains" _ bone fragments associated with the crew that could not be positively identified with any of the 11 individuals.

The pilots of the B-24J were Captain Thomas C. Paschal of El Monte, California, and Second Lieutenant John A. Widsteen, of Palo Alto, California.

The other nine were:

First Lieutenant Frank P. Giugliano, of New York, New York; 

First Lieutenant James P. Gullion, of Paris, Texas; 

Second Lieutenant Leland A. Rehmet, of San Antonio, Texas; 

Staff Sergeant Richard F. King, of Moultrie, Georiga; 

Staff Sergeant William Lowery, of Republic, Pennsylvania; 

Staff Sergeant Elgin J. Luckenbach, of Luckenbach, Texas; 

Staff Sergeant Marion B. May, of Amarillo, Texas; 

Sergeant Marshall P. Borofsky, of Chicago;

Sergeant Walker G. Harm, of Philadelphia.

All were members of the U.S. Army Air Forces.

The bomber was returning to Nadzab, New Guinea, on April 16, 1944 after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia when it crashed. It was last seen off the coast of New Guinea flying into poor weather, the Pentagon said.

Remains were recovered in 2002 by a team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, acting on information provided by a native of Papua New Guinea who reported finding the aircraft crash site.