Remains of Philadelphia WWII B-24 crewman to be buried in Arlington

On April 29, 1944, an armada of nearly 1,500 heavy bombers and escort fighters ascended from England on a treacherous journey to bomb a rail station in Berlin.

Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Karaso, 21, of Miller Street in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia, was the radioman on a B-24 bomber headed to Germany.

It was Karaso's fourth mission.

His first had been five days earlier.

Karaso's bomber was hit by German fighters and tumbled in flames into a field near Hanover. All 10 crewmen were killed. After the war, the U.S. government determined that Karaso's remains could not be recovered.

For the Karaso family, there was heartache, but no closure.

In 2003, the first of several excavations at the crash site yielded human remains. The government arranged to obtain a DNA sample from Karaso's niece Monica Cullen of Marlton. Last year, the government confirmed the DNA matched.

On Wednesday, Karaso will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

"He was just a regular kid," said Agnes Folger, 88, who knew Karaso when they were children. Folger still lives in the same house across from the former Karaso home in the 3200 block of Miller Street.

Among the neighborhood children, Karaso had the nickname "Dodo," Folger said. He and the other boys used to play ball at a nearby field while the girls played jacks on the steps of their rowhouses.

There were seven Karaso children, relatives said. One died shortly after birth. Another was struck by a car and died as a child. Of the remaining five, Karaso had two brothers and two sisters. Their parents were John, a tailor, and Anna. They attended St. George's Roman Catholic Church, which served the Lithuanian community. John Karaso was of Lithuanian descent; his wife was Lithuanian and Polish. Port Richmond was a melting pot of ethnic Europeans.

Joseph Karaso graduated from Northeast High School in 1940. Military records show he joined the Army in January 1943. He criss-crossed the country as part of his training, spending time in central Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Utah, California, New Mexico, and Virginia. He arrived in England the following year.

On May 15, 1944, Karaso's mother received a telegram saying her son was missing in action.

The goal of the mission on April 29, 1944, was to disrupt the passenger rail system in Berlin, particularly the ability of workers to get to their jobs in the war industries.

The B-24 was faster and could carry more ordnance than the older B-17, but it also was harder to fly and more susceptible to damage. Some called it "The Flying Coffin."

Karaso's plane on that final mission was a B-24J Liberator. It carried more than 5,000 pounds of bombs.

The crew was a cross-section of America, with members from California to Georgia.

The pilot was 2d Lt. Robert R. Bishop, 24, of Joliet, Ill. The copilot was 2d Lt. Arthur W. Luce, 24, of Fort Bragg, Calif. The navigator was 2d Lt. Donald W. Hess, 28, of Sioux City, Iowa. The bombadier was 2d Lt. Thomas Digman Jr., 24, of Pittsburgh. The engineer was Sgt. James T. Blong, 19, of Port Washington, Wis.

The rest of the crew was Sgt. John J. Harringer Jr., 20, the right waist gunner, of South Bend, Ind.; Sgt. Michael A. Chiodo, 22, the left waist gunner, of Cleveland; Sgt. John P. Bonnassiolle, 20, the ball-turret gunner, of Oakland, Calif.; and Staff Sgt. Ralph L. McDonald, 22, the tail gunner, of East Point, Ga.

At 7:39 a.m., the bomber took off from RAF Wendling airfield and headed east across the English Channel.

Willi Gudehus was 7 when he looked up at the sky and saw a group of enemy bombers under attack from German fighters. Maybe a minute or two earlier, a German fighter had been struck and fallen to the ground about a mile away.

Then one of the bombers was hit. The boy saw an immediate explosion. As the plane fell toward Gudehus' family farm in the town of Meitze, everyone took cover in underground shelters. For some time after the plane crashed, Gudehus could hear machine-gun ammunition exploding, then finally a giant explosion. The bomber's payload blew up and scattered what was left of the wreckage across neighboring properties and rooftops.

Gudehus' account was recorded on video at his home by Paulette and Shawn Gooch, which they provided to The Inquirer. Bonnassiolle, the ball-turret gunner, was Paulette's half-brother.

Oliver R. "Bud" Guillot was a waist gunner on another B-24 in Karaso's formation. Guillot's plane sustained heavy damage and crash landed in a field near where Karaso's bomber crashed.

Before being taken prisoner by Germans, Guillot, now 89, said, "I could see where another plane was burning about 200 yards away."

In a letter dated Oct. 30, 1951, Col. James B. Clearwater provided Karaso's mother a final update on her son: "the Department of the Army has been forced to determine that the remains of your son are not recoverable."

He added: "Realizing the extent of your great loss, it is regretted that there is no grave at which to pay homage. May the knowledge of your son's honorable service to his country be a sustaining comfort to you."

Karaso, who was not married, died a day before his 22d birthday.

His father died in 1959. His mother died in 1968.

In 2003, a small German group led by Enrico-René Schwartz located the crash site and began searching for anything that could identify the plane and the crew.

The group, the Missing Allied Air Crew Research Team, had been involved in the recovery of two other crash sites.

Schwartz was drawn with a sense of urgency to the site after learning that Bonnassiolle's mother was still alive. Marie Kelley was 101 at the time.

"I was literally blown away," Schwartz wrote in an e-mail from Germany.

Schwartz found Bonnassiolle's name patch as well as engine identification numbers confirming the plane had crashed there. He also found human remains. They were all turned over to the U.S. government, which took over excavation of the site.

"My mom was thrilled that Jack was found," Paulette Gooch said. "She told me that she wanted to go to Germany herself to search for him but had no idea where to start."

Kelley was 103 when she died in 2005.

On June 21, 2005, Paul Karosas, a nephew of Joseph Karaso, (their names have different spellings) e-mailed his cousin Monica Cullen to say the Army needed a DNA sample from a descendent of Karaso's sisters.

"Wow. I was so excited. Could I be the one to decide it?" Cullen, 57, said.

Within a few weeks, a nurse went to Cullen's home to draw blood. The actual testing, which compared Cullen's DNA to recovered bone fragments, was performed several years later.

The only crew member not positively identified through remains was Harringer, though his dog tags were found. It is believed an unidentified person buried in the U.S. military cemetery at Neuville-en-Condroz in Belgium could be Harringer.

Several crew members already have been buried in cemeteries around the United States. Digman, the bombardier from Pittsburgh, is buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium.

At Arlington, Joseph Karaso's remains will be buried in a separate casket, as will those of Hess, the navigator.

A third casket containing other remains will symbolically represent all 10 members of the crew.

Karosas, 57, of Philadelphia, whose father, Albert, Joseph Karosa's brother, also served in World War II, will attend the burial with Cullen.

His uncle, Karosas said, "will be laid to rest in the historic Arlington Cemetery, where his name will be shown for all to see. He will never be forgotten.

"Uncle Joe is home again."