Local native’s remains buried at Arlington

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Navy Lt. Francis B. McIntyre has at last been laid to rest, nearly 67 years after he died serving his country.

McIntyre, a Mitchell native, and a second airman were killed Nov. 10, 1943. The SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber McIntyre was piloting crashed during a combat mission on Buka Island, Papua New Guinea.

His body was recovered in 2008 and identified on Jan. 14 this year. The interment Wednesday was solemn and formal, according to Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO).

It was “the most formal ceremony the military has,” Greer said.

McIntyre was buried with full military honors, he said, including a flag-draped, horse-drawn caisson. An honor guard was present and a bugler played “Taps,” Greer said.

In his final mission, McIntyre, 25, departed from Munda Field, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands. Aviation Radioman Second Class William L. Russell of Cherokee, Okla., was also aboard the plane for the bombing and strafing mission. McIntyre flew the lead plane in the mission, with other bombers trailing him in the attack on the Japaneseheld island.

But his plane went down in an explosion and wasn’t recovered. The military declared the plane and men lost and unrecoverable.

For more than 60 years, no more was heard, although McIntyre’s brothers and other relatives kept his memory alive.

Then, in 2007, McIntyre’s plane resurfaced when a swampy area near the Buka airport dried. A Papuan native discovered the crash site and recovered the near-complete remains of two American servicemen.

In May 2008, specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), working with the country’s national museum, investigated the crash site but were unable to excavate it because of inclement weather.

Local officials turned over human remains, McIntyre’s identification tag and other military-related items which had been recovered earlier. After examining the remains in 2008 and 2009, JPAC determined that no excavation would be required since the two sets of remains were nearly complete.

That’s when the DPMO went to work. Greer said nearly complete skeletons were found.

McIntyre was identified when there was found to be a mitochondrial DNA match between the skeleton and material recovered from a hat he had owned decades before. A family member had held onto the hat, Greer said.

With modern scientific methods, such ID work is becoming far more common, he said.

“We’ve made IDs off the saliva from an envelope a serviceman has licked,” Greer said.

The bodies were stored in a laboratory in Hawaii once they were identified, he said. A few days ago, they were brought to Washington, D.C., under military escort to prepare for the burial.

Russell will be buried at Arlington today.

The Navy covers the expenses of the burial, Greer said.

It is done in compliance with the wishes of the family and where the family wants the servicemember buried.

The Navy also provides funds for the family to cover their expenses to attend the ceremony, such as housing, per diem and meals, Greer said.

Francis “Tully” McIntyre of Seattle, who was named after his uncle, spoke about the discovery of Lt. McIntyre’s remains to The Daily News of Longview, Wash., this summer.

Francis McIntyre and his brothers Cornelius, Donald, Mathew and Joseph moved to Washington in the mid-1930s after the death of their father, Donald Sr. Their mother Kathryn had died in 1924.

Family members were told of the recovery in a meeting with J-PAC members in Los Gatos, Calif., where other family members live, McIntyre told The Daily News.

“It was a very emotional moment for all of us,” he told a reporter. “It was nice to know that there is going to be closure on this.”

Greer, who retired from the Navy in 1994, is a civilian employee of the DPMO. He said it is a fascinating and rewarding field that he intends to continue to do for many years.

While it appears the two airmen died of blunt force trauma, Greer said his office has a different goal than determining the cause of death.

“What we’re interested in is, who is it?” he said. “It’s never routine. Every story is different.”

DPMO staff members become attached to their cases and the families and often attend the funeral, he said.

Greer said people from the DPMO office were in Arlington when Lt. McIntyre was buried.

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