Remains Of WWII Serviceman Accounted For; Lt. Blaine Wilcox Will Be Buried At Glenwood Cemetery

Eighty-one years after his death, a Mills County serviceman killed in action during World War II is returning home for a proper burial.

U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Blaine B. Wilcox, 26, of Pacific Junction, will be buried with full military honors Tuesday,  Oct. 7, 2 p.m., in the Glenwood Cemetery. His remains are scheduled to be transported with military escort to Peterson Mortuary in Glenwood Friday morning.

According to a press release from the agency, Wilcox's family recently received their full briefing on his identification, allowing for additional details about his story to be shared.

During World War II, Wilcox served as a bombardier assigned to 613th Bombardment Squadron, 401st Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force. On Oct. 7, 1944, during a bombing mission targeting a German synthetic oil refinery in Politz, Germany, Wilcox’s B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed near the village of Kattenhof, Germany. All nine crewmembers, including Wilcox, were killed.

In 1948, an investigation by the American Graves Registration Command in Widziensko, Poland (previously in Hohenbruck, Germany), resulted in the recovery of five sets of remains from graves marked with American aircrew helmets. Two sets were identified as crew members from Wilcox’s aircraft. The commingled and badly burned remains of three other individuals were found in a common grave without a casket. These remains were transported to the U.S. Military Cemetery in Neuville (now Ardennes American Cemetery) in Belgium and designated as unknowns X-7543, X-7544, and X-7545.

It was later determined that these three unknowns were the only recoverable remains associated with unresolved casualties from Wilcox's crew, and all seven missing crew members were designated “recovered.” These remains were reinterred in a group burial at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Ky., in February 1950.

In 2019, a DPAA investigation team traveled to Poland and surveyed several American aircraft crash sites in the area of Police, Poland. Investigators determined that one of these sites, located near the village of Katy, likely belonged to Wilcox’s aircraft.

While investigating incidents near Police, local third-party researchers informed DPAA personnel that an elderly witness claimed to have seen three or four unknown airmen fall from the sky near the village of Budzien in 1944. Members of the German Luftwaffe buried the remains of the unknown airmen in unmarked graves in the village cemetery in Budzien.

In January 2022, another DPAA investigation team returned to Poland to continue searching for missing Americans near Police. Believing the 1944 burial in Budzien may have been associated with unaccounted-for airmen from several American aircraft that crashed in the area, investigators surveyed the abandoned cemetery and determined several unmarked burials were present in the area indicated by the witness.

In November 2022, DPAA personnel, along with a team from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland, led by Dr. Andrzej Ossowski, exhumed the graves and discovered remains buried with equipment and clothing belonging to American airmen from World War II. The remains were transported to the DPAA Laboratory.

To identify Wilcox’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and dental analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.

On July 24, 1944, less than three months before Lt. Wilcox was killed in action, his brother, Flight Officer Stewart Laval Wilcox, 21, went missing in action and was later reported killed over the English Channel when his 10-member crew was forced to bail out with parachutes and life belts over the water. All of the men except Flight Officer Wilcox were picked up and reported safe.