An Army airman who was missing for 58 years was finally laid to rest Tuesday in his hometown of Haverhill, Mass., six years after the wreckage of his plane was found by a hunter in the mountains of Panama.
Cpl. Paul R. Stubbs was 24 when he and his crew disappeared while on patrol over the Panama Canal on June 8, 1941, a few months before the United States entered World War II. When the plane did not reach its destination, an air and ground search was conducted, but no trace was found until 1999, when a hunter stumbled upon the wreckage.
Scientists from the Joint POW Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab spent the next six years comparing DNA from remains found at the crash site to a database of missing military personnel before positively identifying Stubbs and his two crew members, 2nd Lt. Augustus J. Allen of Myrtle Springs, Texas, and Staff Sgt. James D. Cartwright of Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, Stubbs was buried in Hilldale Cemetery, near his parents, after a graveside service attended by about 75 local veterans. Soldiers from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y., served as pallbearers.
“In this particular case – someone who at 24 lost their life serving their country and how it’s taken so long to identify him – I thought it only proper to show some respect,” said John Ratka, a Vietnam-era veteran who is the executive director of the Veterans Northeast Outreach Center, a regional veterans center based in Haverhill.
Robert Adams, 87, a World War II Army veteran from Merrimac, did not know Stubbs, but said he was pleased Stubbs was finally able to come home.
“Anytime they can find one and bring him home, it’s good – it’s wonderful,” Adams said. “There’s an awful lot out there who they haven’t found and never will,” he said.
Stubbs has no surviving family members in the area. His cousin, Rita Winterhawk, 71, of Great Falls, Mont., attended the service, along with her son, Ernest Medow, and grandson, Ernest Medow II. Three other cousins also attended the service.
Comments are no longer available on this story