KILLED IN 1944, AIRMAN JOHN S. MCCONNON
MAY BE COMING HOME
Monday, April 27, 1998
By Ann Belser, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It was August 1944 when the McConnon family of Squirrel
Hill received word that the B-24 bomber aboard which John McConnon was
navigator had been shot down over Albania.
He was declared dead in 1945. His family learned later that four men
had parachuted from the plane and been taken prisoner, but McConnon had
died in the wreckage.
But McConnon's brother never forgot him. During the war, Albania was
occupied by Germany. And after the Iron Curtain was erected, the country
was inaccessible to Americans until 1990.
But when the borders opened, James McConnon, a lawyer in Philadelphia,
saw it as an opportunity to find his brother's remains and bring them
back home.
He may have done just that.
McConnon was in Albania from April 6 through the 13th. While there,
he and the man who directs the U.S. Army's memorial affairs activities
in Europe found a grave that contained the remains of an American
serviceman. There's a 20 percent chance that they are the remains of
John McConnon.
McConnon was 24 when his plane was shot down. James McConnon of
Wynnewood, Montgomery County, said the tail was blown off the back of
the plane, killing the tail gunner. While four men were able to escape,
the other five rode the wreckage into the mountains of the Berati region
of Albania.
"The plane crashed into a farmhouse and killed an entire family," James
McConnon said.
The Albanians recovered two bodies from the wreckage and buried them
both, but the Army was able to find only one of those graves.
In a family full of handsome men, John was the best-looking, said
Carol Bostwick McConnon of Fox Chapel, who married Thomas McConnon,
one of John's five brothers.
Tall and slender, with light brown hair and blue eyes, "He was a
good-looking guy -- the ladies thought so, too," said a brother, Edward
McConnon of Acworth, Ga.
John was a jazz pianist who graduated from law school at the University
of Pittsburgh before he entered the Army Air Forces.
In 1939, the summer before he went to law school and just before World
War II, he traveled back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the
ocean liner Ile de France, playing the piano in a dance band for the
passengers, Edward McConnon said.
His favorite song was "Little Rock Get Away" according to Charlotte
McCrady of Point Breeze, who said she had been a close friend of John
McConnon.
One night, the two were out late, coming home from a bar in McCrady's
father's car when they were involved in an accident, damaging the car.
"I told my father some story," she said, never admitting that she wasn't
the driver.
The next day John McConnon walked into her father's office and told
him the truth. "He told him we had been drinking," she said. "That's
the kind of man he was."
John McConnon used to spend time in the Hill District at the musicians
union where the musicians from the big bands used to relax when they
were in town. "They would have some great jam sessions," James McConnon
said. His brother John was always a part of it.
When his plane went down Aug. 10, 1944, it took a part of his father,
Myles McConnon Sr. with him, Edward McConnon said. His father died the
next year.
Edward McConnon said the family had lost someone special.
"From my point of view, he was the big brother that you looked up to. He
was the one who settled arguments, who refereed boxing matches. He was
a real straight guy. A real straight shooter."
The little brother had a portrait painted of John McConnon from
snapshots taken through the years. Edward McConnon gave the oil painting
to his mother. She left it to him when she died.
"We're just a bunch of sentimental old Irish guys," he said.
His brother James never gave up the quest to have John's remains brought
home.
In his attempt to find his brother, James McConnon traveled to a region
of Albania so remote that he had to stay in the home of his interpreter
because there were no hotels. He said he was taken by the graciousness
of the Albanian people.
"They are very emotional, very family-oriented people," he said.
The remains are being transported to Hawaii, where the Army will try
to identify them.
"This whole process of identification is done very carefully," James
McConnon said.
If they are John McConnon's remains, he would be eligible to be buried
in Arlington National Cemetery, but his brother Edward has another idea.
He said he would like to see his brother buried in Homewood Cemetery,
next to his mother.
A brother never quit searching.
KILLED ON WWII MISSION, PA. AIRMAN TO COME HOME
By Mark Davis, Inquirer Staff Writer
John McConnon was dead and buried somewhere in Albania, another
airman lost during a series of air raids on oil fields in Ploiesti, Romania,
during the height of World War II. His younger brother, James McConnon,
accepted that.
But James McConnon, a Center City resident and lawyer, never quit trying
to find his brother.
His search ended two weeks ago.
The remains of 2d Lt. McConnon are coming home in May -- the fulfillment
of a quest that began seven years ago with an Albania travel story in the
Sunday Inquirer and that last year led McConnon to an unmarked grave in the
mountains of Albania.
Late last month, a forensics specialist told McConnon what he already
suspected: the skeleton of the man that Albanian villagers had carefully
buried 54 years ago was that of his brother, age 24 when he died.
"I know now what I hadn't known for 50 years," said McConnon, 72, who
will bury his brother's remains in Pittsburgh, where he and his five brothers
grew up. "I don't know how to describe that feeling."
James McConnon performed a remarkable feat in finding his brother's remains
on the other side of the world, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the federal
Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. The agency searches the world for
lost American fighters, and two weeks ago confirmed the identity of McConnon's
bones, plus those of a crewmate.
" [ James McConnon ] was the catalyst to make this happen," Greer said
yesterday from his office in Washington. "Mr. McConnon obviously has a
love for his brother and family to have done this."
The story of John McConnon's disappearance could be the tale of almost
any airman lost over Europe during World War II.
After dropping bombs on Axis oil fields and depots in central Romania,
McConnon's B-24 Liberator turned around to make the trip back to its air
base in San Pancrazio, Italy. For McConnon and his nine crewmates, the
Aug. 10, 1944, run marked their 28th, and last, mission.
According to military records, the bomber formation, already battered
over the heavily fortified Ploiesti fields, veered slightly south from
the usual course home. That put them within range of German encampments
in and around Berat, Albania. As they passed overhead, in daylight, antiaircraft
guns peppered the sky. A shell found McConnon's bomber, severing the aircraft's
tail-gun turret and rudder.
Fatally crippled, the airplane limped south, crashing in Goraj, a farming
village in the Dolemite mountains 60 miles south of Tirana, the Albanian
capital. Five crewmen parachuted -- one died, apparently from the impact
-- and Germans soon captured the remaining four.
Three, according to records, did not bail out and vanished -- lost, perhaps,
in the fire and carnage after the 25-ton airplane smashed into the earth.
Two others -- McConnon and Sgt. Wayne Shaffner of Martinsville, Ill. --
apparently jumped from the bomber just moments before it crashed. Investigators
theorize they may not have had time to open their parachutes and died on
impact. Villagers buried them in unmarked graves, according to reports.
The next year, 1945, the Army officially proclaimed Shaffner and McConnon
killed in action.
They were lost, too. Following the war, Albania, like much of Eastern
Europe, was closed to Western visitors as the Cold War escalated. Years
turned into decades. The McConnon boys matured, moved away from Pittsburgh,
had families of their own.
But they never forgot John, the second-oldest, an aspiring lawyer who
left the University of Pittsburgh to fly.
"He was an inspiration to all his younger brothers," said McConnon, who
was six years younger than his navigator brother.
An inspiration at the piano, too, someone who understood the emotion and
sweep of Rhapsody In Blue when it was played right. "He was a brilliant
pianist," McConnon said. "He loved to play jazz."
Those memories came back in painful clarity on Aug. 9, 1992, a Sunday.
McConnon was reading The Inquirer and noticed an article about Albania
in the newspaper's travel section. He wrote the freelance author, asking
for help in locating his lost brother.
"He got the letter and called me immediately," McConnon said. "That's
what started it."
The writer, who lived in New York, suggested McConnon write to a journalist
he'd met in Tirana. McConnon took his advice, posting a letter to Tirana
in October 1992. The months passed, then a year. In early 1994, the wait
ended with a response from Albania.
During his wait, McConnon learned, the Albanian reporter had been digging
through war-era archives and visiting sites in and around Goraj, asking about
airplane crashes.
The two corresponded for the next year -- the faraway reporter telling
the American lawyer what he had learned, the lawyer offering advice and
support.
The work paid off in September 1995, when McConnon received a letter and
photos from the reporter. The documents described the discovery of a site
where elderly Goraj residents remembered a big bomber that crashed to earth
in 1944. Two men, the villagers said, were buried nearby -- one at a farm,
and another in a hillside grave.
"Everything fit," he said. "I was sure I'd found my brother."
McConnon sent the information to the POW/MIA agency, which agreed to
send a researcher to the village. The timing was good. Albania was more
open to visitors than it had been in decades, following the fall of the
Soviet Union. The investigator confirmed McConnon's assertions: There were
two graves in the village, possibly those of the lost airmen.
Yet three more years would pass before McConnon could stand at his brother's
graveside. Albania virtually closed its borders when a revolution broke out
in the country, before the team could retrieve the bones. In early 1998,
the agency's team of specialists got permission to return. During the week
of April 6-13, the visitors made inquiries, took photos and dug. McConnon
was with the searchers, standing under an olive tree, when shovelers carefully
removed dirt from bones that turned out to be his brother's.
Those bones will be buried May 15 in Pittsburgh.
John McConnon, who turned his eyes to the sky, will be back in his native
soil.
"It's really somewhat joyful that we might have a chance to bring him
home," Edward said.
Friday, March 5, 1999; 5:43 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The remains of three American servicemen
missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being
returned to their families in the United States for burial, the Pentagon
said Friday. The three were identified as Maj. Frank H. Blakey, Millbrook,
Ala.; 2nd Lt. John S. McConnon, Pittsburgh; and Tech. Sgt. Wayne O. Shaffner,
Martinsville, Ill. McConnon and Shaffner were crew members aboard a B-24
Liberator shot down by German anti-aircraft fire in Albania on Aug. 10,
1944.
The plane was returning to a base in Italy after a bombing run over
Romania when it came under attack. Blakey was commanding officer of the
305th Airdrome Squadron near Aitape, New Guinea, when he was last seen
driving a jeep on June 10, 1944. The area -- now part of Papua New Guinea
-- was under Japanese control at the time.
The remains of the three servicemen were sent to the U.S. military identification
lab in Hawaii,which officially confirmed the identities. About 78,000 U.S.
military personnel who fought in World War II are still missing. Most are
believed to have perished at sea.
06 Mar 1999
WWII MIA remains ID'd
The remains of three American servicemen missing in action
from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families
for burial in the United States. They are identified as Maj. Frank H. Blakey,
Millbrook, Ala.; 2nd Lt. John S. McConnon, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Tech. Sgt.
Wayne O. Shaffner, Martinsville, Ill.
Blakey was commanding officer of the 305th Airdrome Squadron near Aitape,
New Guinea, when he was last seen driving a jeep on June 10, 1944, near the
unit's POW stockade. When he failed to return to his quarters the following
day, the squadron reported him missing and launched a massive search effort.
The area surrounding Aitape was reported to be under Japanese control.
Four days after his disappearance, an Australian soldier found Blakey's
jeep south of Aitape. Following the discovery of the Jeep the area was again
searched, but the missing officer was not found. Blakey was presumed dead
Jan. 22, 1946.
In April 1989 the U.S. Embassy in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, was
notified that a district officer in Aitape Sanaun province was in possession
of remains believed to be those of an American Serviceman. In July 1989
a recovery team from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii
(CILHI) traveled to New Guinea and questioned the individual in possession
of the remains. In addition to the remains, the team recovered personal
effects including two identification tags and a bracelet engraved "Frank
H. Blakey." The team visited the location where the remains were found, but
recovered no additional personal effects or remains.
McConnon and Shaffner were crew members aboard a B-24J Liberator aircraft
on Aug. 10, 1944, returning from a bombing raid on enemy oil fields in Ploesti,
Romania. An anti-aircraft explosion struck the tail of the aircraft, severing
the tail gun turret and rudder. The aircraft entered a steep dive and crashed
in Albania. It was subsequently learned that at least four of the crew had
safely parachuted, but were taken prisoner by German soldiers. The six remaining
crewmen, including McConnon and Shaffner, were listed as missing in action.
After the end of the war the survivors indicated that their captors had shown
them identification tags for McConnon and Shaffner. On June 6, 1945 both men
were placed in killed in action status.
In 1995, James C. McConnon, 2nd Lt. McConnon's brother, contacted an Albanian
journalist in an effort to uncover information relating to his brother's disappearance.
Information discovered by McConnon and the journalist, Llazar Vero, was given
to the U. S. Army. Later that year, a representative from the U.S. Army's
Memorial Affairs Activity in Europe traveled to Goraj, Albania and interviewed
several local residents with information correlating to the loss of 2nd Lt.
McConnon's B-24. The residents stated that two of the crewmen were buried
in unmarked graves near the village.
In April and June 1998, CILHI recovery teams excavated two unmarked burial
sites near Goraj from which two sets of remains were recovered. Anthropological
analysis of the remains and other evidence assembled by the CILHI confirmed
the identification of Blakey, McConnon and Shaffner. More than 78,000 Americans
still remain unaccounted for from World War II.
Tribute to a soldier by Jason Hathaway
Betty Shaffner Hardway still remembers the day in 1944 when
War Department officials knocked on her family's door and had a telegram
saying that her brother, Army Air Forces Tech. Sgt. Wayne O. "Hoot" Shaffner,
had been shot down over Albania and was missing in action.
Just 12 at the time, the loss hit her hard. "It was real traumatic for
me because he was my big brother," Hardway said. "It was a terrible day."
A year later, after the war ended, the Shaffner family received another
telegram that declared Sgt. Shaffner was "Killed In Action," drawing on information
obtained from the four surviving crew members of the aircraft he was aboard.
Despite the news, the siblings remained hopeful that their
brother would return home. Hardway had trouble believing Sgt. Shaffner was
dead and kept in touch with the plane's surviving crew members after the
war.
"We had hopes he'd return someday," Hardway said. "We kept waiting for
him to walk through the front door. We had hopes for 20 years, but by then
you start to think that won't happen."
Last year, Hardway, 67, and her two surviving brothers,
Herb Shaffner, 75, and Jack Shaffner, 70, learned that the Army Memorial
Affairs Commission had found Sgt. Shaffner's remains buried close to where
his plane crashed.
After months of preparation, the Army allowed Sgt. Shaffner
a final trip home. Family and friends bid an emotional goodbye Saturday at
Ridgelawn Cemetery. American Legion posts from Marshall and Martinsville
and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5975 performed full graveside military
rites, along with eight soldiers from the 47th Infantry Battalion, Third
Brigade.
"It was pretty impressive, a fitting end, I think. We were very proud,"
Jack Shaffner said.
Wayne Shaffner, 26 at the time of his death, flew missions from an air
base in Germany aboard a 15th Air Force B-24 "Liberator." The crew was taking
a shortcut back to base from a raid on a German oil refinery in Ploesti,
Romania, when three bursts of German anti-aircraft fire severed the tailgun
turret and right rudder near Goraj, Albania.
"The plane immediately started vibrating and turning, almost completely
going downward," surviving crew member Fred Petitt recalled. "The pilot told
us we'd better get out; he couldn't control the plane any more. After that,
we just bailed out."
The plane's tailgunner died instantly and soon fell from
the plane. Petitt, who was the aircraft's radio operator, and three other
crewmen parachuted from the falling aircraft, but German forces soon captured
them. After their release in April 1945, the crew members indicated the tailgunner
was buried close to them and that a German officer admitted shooting down
the plane and showed them Shaffner's dog tags and those of the plane's navigator
Second Lt. John S. McConnon. Shaffner, McConnon and the other three missing
crew members were presumed dead.
Petitt, 76, who now resides in Palominas, Ariz., said
he and the other crewmen learned that their pilot, co-pilot and nosegunner
had died when they crashed into an Albanian farmhouse, causing a fire that
lasted two days and also killed a family of 13. Shaffner and McConnon were
presumed dead, too, because their parachutes hadn't opened.
Because of the Soviet Union's control of Albania, U.S.
officials learned little more about the aftermath of the crash for more than
50 years.
Jack Shaffner was the first to hear of the recovery of his brother's remains.
Last June, he received a call from James McConnon, 75, of Philadelphia, a
younger brother of John McConnon, also listed as "Killed In Action." Like
the Shaffners, James McConnon had always wondered what really happened after
the crash. All that he and the other families had were records of statements
the surviving crew members had made.
In 1995, McConnon read a Philadelphia Inquirer article
by a reporter who had recently returned from Albania. McConnon and the Inquirer
reporter hired Albanian journalist Llazar Vero to interview people in the
Goraj area in an effort to pinpoint just where the fallen American airmen
were buried. By 1998, Vero issued a report saying that some Albanian Muslims
recalled the location of the graves. They had given the American soldiers
a traditional Muslim burial in 1944 and reportedly took pride in maintaining
the graves and hiding them from the Soviet-backed government.
At James McConnon's request, the Army Memorial Affairs
Commission, Europe, sent an engineer, forensic pathologist, mortician and
an interpreter to Goraj to exhume the remains of Sgt. Shaffner and Lt. McConnon.
James McConnon accompanied the group and kept in contact with Petitt, who
answered questions about the incident.
The group found Lt. McConnon's body first, on a hilltop
grave on some farmland.
"The farmer permitted them to dig that out," James McConnon said. "They
found a body and that was my brother."
Seeing his brother's skeletal remains was an unusual experience, he said.
"It was pretty profound. It gives you an immediate idea of the price of war.
A lot of young men die. They're all heroes in my book."2
After more research and digging, the group found Shaffner's
remains. Officials sent both skeletons to the Army's Central Identification
Laboratory in Hawaii where forensic pathologists using dental records confirmed
their identifications. The Army prepared Wayne Shaffner's fractured skeleton
for burial and escorted it home on April 10.
"Just sort of a wave went through me as I realized it was him," Hardway
said. "It brought a lot of memories back."
Sgt. Shaffner was a gentle young man while growing up
on his family's Clark County farm, Hardway said. The third of six brothers
and sisters, he liked to keep himself busy by helping out on the farm, playing
sports, hunting and trapping, she said. Wherever he was, his little sister
always tried to remain close behind.
"I was interested in everything that he did and I followed him around
like a little lamb," she said. "My other brothers used to tease me, since
I was the baby of the family, but he was more docile."
The three siblings are glad to have their big brother, who got his nickname
"Hoot" from being a big fan of 1930s cowboy film star Hoot Gibson, home again.
Herb Shaffner, also a World War II Army Air Forces veteran, was impressed
with the way McConnon and the U.S. Army worked together to locate his long
lost brother.
"In those days, if you were MIA, there wasn't much time spent looking
for you," he said. "After some time, you were declared dead. Now after the
Vietnam War, they had so many MIAs it became an important issue to search
for them. That's one of the best things to come out of the Vietnam War."
The McConnon Family has scheduled a memorial service for
Lt. McConnon, whose remains are now in burial preparation, for May 15 in
Pittsburgh.
James McConnon is happy he was able to help find his brother
and Sgt. Shaffner and help bring closure to the crew members' families. He
hopes the Army Memorial Commission continues its search for MIA soldiers.
"Even if two came back, there's still plenty left, and every one of them
has a family somewhere," he said. "That's probably what gave me the most
satisfaction -- being able to know what happened and tell the other people
what happened. They hadn't heard anything for 50 years, and suddenly, they
now know."
To Read more about this story visit this link:
The
Longest Trip Home By Bill Duryea
From The St. Petersburg Times
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