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| | Email this article • Print this article | Laid to rest...after 65 years
by Nancy Busiahn
The family of Joseph Thompson met for the first time at his burial on Monday, August 25, 2008. Attending the ceremony were David Fox-a grandnephew from Cannon Falls-and his wife Carolyn; a grand-niece from Thompson's adoptive family, Dawn Nord, and her husband from California; and Sandy Smith, a resident of Bunbury, Australia, the daughter Thompson never met.
The service, held in Arlington Cemetery-located just across the Potomac River from Washington DC-was the culmination of a 26-year search for Thompson's family by his daughter, and a search for Thompson's downed B-24 bomber instigated by Carolyn Fox in 2003. The remains of the other crew members were also interred.
Sandy was told about the ceremony only four days prior to the event. She and a friend, John Abrim, made a 24-hour flight from Australia to Washington. Sandy, David and Carolyn, and Dawn met for the first time in DC, and they immediately felt a connection, Carolyn said. Sandy and John drove back to Cannon Falls with the local couple following the service. While in Minnesota, Sandy was able to meet other family members before she and John left for home on Sunday, September 7.
Thompson's girlfriend, Dorothy Joyce Pardella, gave birth to Sandy in May, 1944. Dorothy told Sandy only her father's name, where he was from-Stockton, California, and the fact that Sandy was born out of wedlock.
Sandy began trying to locate her father's family in 1982. Eventually, she tracked down Thompson's family in California, and in 2000 they sent Sandy the first photo she'd ever seen of her father.
Sandy didn't stop there. She found out he was adopted, so she launched a search for Joseph's birth family. Through the use of obituaries and other sources, she eventually located them in Minnesota. Born to Elizabeth Miller of Cannon Falls, Joseph had been placed for adoption as a toddler. His mother's sister, Alma Cook, and her three brothers all remembered the boy and, in later years, wondered what had become of him.
In December, 2002, Sandy called David Fox, the only grandson of Alma Cook. David and Carolyn let their machine pick up the call but quickly answered after the woman mentioned the names of Alma Cook and Leroy Minter, David's uncle.
They enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Sandy, and Carolyn decided to get involved in the search for the downed plane. As an American, she was able to access military information not available to Sandy. She also set up a web page.
In May of 2003, Christopher Moon of Shakopee discovered an item about Carolyn's search for a missing MIA relative, and passed the information on to his father, Bryan Moon. Bryan and Christopher are the founders of MIA Hunters, which had already located numerous missing MIAs.
Some time later, Moon replied to the request, noting that he lived in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Carolyn said she read Moon's email message at 2:30 a.m. "I was raised to be polite about phone calls," she recalled, "but it was hard to wait until 9 a.m. to call Bryan!" Moon describes the connection as "a million to one coincidence."
Carolyn gave Moon all the information she'd been able to gather about Thompson from United States, Australian, and other sources.
Here, the coincidences became even more remarkable. Bryan and Christopher Moon visited Papua New Guinea on a successful mission three years earlier. Based on his knowledge of the area, Moon decided the records pointed to the Owen Stanley Mountain Range on the north side of Papua New Guinea as the possible crash site.
While in New Guinea, Bryan had learned of a native who had in his possession the military dog tag of Staff Sgt/ Robert E. Frank. Moon now checked the name against the crew list of Joseph's downed B-24 bomber, and found a match.
If the story was true, the native was key to locating the crash site, and Moon enlisted the services of Michael Roy, an educated Papuan, who became his on-site liaison, guide, and interpreter. Moon sent Roy directions, maps, and funds, along with specific orders not to disturb the crash site, but to take lots of photographs.
Moon said he hoped that approaching the territorial, and often hostile, natives via Roy and other Papuans, along with offering a financial incentive to lead them to the crash site, would be the key to success, and he was right.
Roy and his group traveled to the town of Deboin, and persuaded the village chief who-along with his son- had found the lost plane in 2002 to lead them to the crash site. The natives said they had recovered Frank's dog tag from the fuselage of the plane. The debris was scattered over a large area, and parts of the plane had been carried off by natives.
The remains of the 11-man crew were recovered by JPAC-a joint POW/MIA recovery team, in 2004, and through DNA testing of relatives, the remains were identified in April 2008. Both David and his uncle, Leroy Minter, contributed DNA samples.
During an interview held while she was in Cannon Falls, Sandy said both her father and his adoptive family knew about Dorothy's pregnancy. In fact, Sandy said, Thompson had gone AWOL to be with Dorothy after he got the news.
When Joseph was found three months later, Sandy said, he was demoted from sergeant to private, but remained in the US Air Force. On December 3, 1943, he was aboard a B-24D Liberator that took off from Dobodura, New Guinea, on an armed reconnaissance mission over New Hanover Island in the Bismarck Sea. Thompson and one other crew member weren't scheduled to make the flight, but were called to fill in for two men who were ill.
The crew reported dropping their bombs on target, but despite several radio contacts, the plane never returned to the base. The final radio message from the plane was, "Why aren't the lights on?" Moon believes the message indicates the crew got lost while on their way back to their base.
Bryan Moon has made 23 trips in search of missing American servicemen, and MIA Hunters continues to offer its services, free of charge, to other MIA families. The Moons typically don't meet the families they help, but had a chance to meet Sandy while she was in Minnesota.
Moon is currently planning their largest search ever in Papua in 2010. Anyone interested in making the trip, at their own expense, can get more information by visiting www.mia hunters. com, or by calling Moon at 507-263-7050.
Incidentally, two family members weren't able to attend Joseph's burial. Sandy's husband died in Australia a few weeks before the crash site was located. Joseph's uncle, Leroy Minter, passed away in 2004, about the time the remains were recovered by JPAC.
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