Discovering the Remains of a Lost Flight
Guest post by Peter Stekel author of Final Flight
Final Flight began with my attempt to solve the mystery of Leo Mustonen, a WWII Army Air Forces aviation cadet found entombed within the Mendel Glacier in northern Kings Canyon National Park in California. Where was his airplane? Why did it take so long for him to be found? How did he get there?
Found in late October, 2005, and at first known as the “Frozen Airman,” Mustonen was studying to be a navigator on the big bombers of World War II. He disappeared on November 18, 1942 with fellow cadets, John Mortenson and Ernest Glenn Munn, along with their pilot, 2nd Lt. William Gamber.
Some elements of the mystery yielded sooner than others. In the summer of 2007 I found airplane wreckage when I hiked to Mendel Glacier. It’s in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada mountains and this explains why Mustonen lay undiscovered for 63 years. The glacier’s rapid melting in recent years explains why his remains were uncovered in 2005 and not sooner.
How the Frozen Airman ended up in a southern California glacier was a big conundrum. How could the airplane carrying these four young men have gotten so far off its reported course? Many times I felt more like a detective than a writer as I poured through forgotten military reports and dug through records to find witnesses and other sources who could tell me what I needed to know. After nearly five years of study I finally found my answers. It involved meteorology, climatology, aviation, glacial geology, and how young men trained to go off to war in the 1940s.
And in the course of digging into the Final Flight story, I became a part of it. Exploring Mendel Glacier in 2007, I found the remains of Cadet Ernest Glenn Munn. From a distance, I first thought Munn was a small tree, killed and blackened from frost. But at an elevation of 12,500 feet, and on a High Sierra glacier, there are no trees. It was a person. Another soldier would finally be coming home.
Both my parents died during my time with Final Flight. The discovery of Munn’s remains, and his return to his family, helped me with my own grieving and closure as Glenn’s family dealt with their’s. And I learned how little is spoken about our soldiers who died during training without ever having the chance to get into battle overseas. We lost 4,500 aircraft in combat against the Japanese during the war and at the same time 7,100 aircraft were lost in the United States to accidents in training and transportation. Such accidents claimed the lives of more than 15,530 pilots, crewmembers, and ground personnel.
Sam Day on 02/03/2011 at 09:38 AM
I'm reading the old school version, hand signed by the author.
Loving it.. Mr. Stekel unravels it all for us in a panoramic narrative, atop an underpainting of meticulous sleuthing, and even found one of the bodies himself.
Mary Grimsley on 04/14/2011 at 02:14 PM
We went to hear Mr. Stekel speak at the Historic Society presentation in Ridgecrest last night. We are very glad we went. He is a wonderful speaker who really cares about this subject. He also presented some numbers that just blew us away. Do any of you know how many of our precious boys were lost in training to fight in WWII, in the states .... not on the battlefield. The numgber is staggering. We bought his book and he signed it for us.
Julie on 09/21/2011 at 01:53 PM
A message to Peter Stekel:
My mother, from Wheeling W.Va, was engaged to Glenn Munn. Mom said that after Glenn was declared deceased and after the death notice was published in the Wheeling newspaper, she subsequently deceided to give back Glenn's engagement ring to his mother. His mother refused to take back the ring but my mother insisted as this would be a keepsake from Glenn.
Mother also said Glenn's had younger sister's who were all so nice. I asked Mom if she knew anything about a Signet ring. But she did not remember any such ring. Mom remembered the big dances at Wheeling Park and also at Olgby Park. I gave her your book to read. She was so touched by the memory of him that when she returned your book to me she forgot to take out her book mark, the original newspaper obituary notice. The death notice stated his date of death as November 18, 1942 and visitation would be on Thursday at Wilson Funeral Home, 920 National Rd., Brookside, Ohio and interment at Holly Memorial Gardens, Pleasant Grove, OH with full military honors being conducted by the US Army Honor Guard, Ft. Knox, Kentucky.
My mother is now 92 years old, wheelchair bound, living with the early stages of dementia along with her husband of 68 years who is originally from Martens Ferry, OH.
We, her daughters, used to tease our mother saying that, "if she had married Glenn we might all have been born blond."
Sincerely,
Julie
Peter Stekel on 03/16/2012 at 09:31 PM
Julie - It is 3/16/12 and I have just read your post. If you check back in here, please write to me at peter@FinalFlightTheBook.com. I would love to speak with you. Thank you. Peter
Peter Stekel on 03/16/2012 at 09:33 PM
P.S.
Julie,
I have photos of Glenn from the Wheeling years. I'd love to know if your mother is in any of them.
Please write to me.
Peter