Major Earl Robert KINDIG, a U.S. Field Artillery Regular Army officer and
battalion commander, is com ing home 57-1/2 years after having been presumed
killed-in-action in the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
Thanks almost exclusively to the dedicated work of Fred Hagen, a U.S.
civilian contractor who routinely visits New Guinea to search for American
wrecks and remains of our MIA servicemen; Patricia Gaffney, who also lost
her father, a 5th Air Force fighter pilot, and recovered his remains just
a
short distance from the Kindig wreck; and the men and women of the Army's
Central Identification Laboratory, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, Major
Kindig will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery by the Army's "Old
Guard" Regiment at the end of this month.
Major Kindig, who was subsequently awarded the Legion of Merit posthumously
for his actions on 07 February 1944, had gone aloft that day in a light
aircraft to direct with great precision artillery fire on columns of Japanese
troops. His aircraft never returned. A.S.N.F.
