The news came by Western Union telegram, when news still traveled by telegram.

It came in July 1943 to the Augusta home of Bernard and Lina Whitney.

It read, “Tommy killed in action. No details.”

Thomas Whitney, a private first class in the Marine Corps Reserve serving in the South Pacific at the height of World War II, was the couple’s second-oldest of 10 children. He was just 22.

The Whitneys’ youngest child, John, was 6 years old at the time and still sleeping. He awoke to the sound of family members crying and went downstairs to see why. Unsure how to break the news, they told him to go back to bed. He would find out the next day.

The family would get more details later, but not many. Tommy’s body was never found. He was among the more than 78,000 missing in action during World War II, nearly 20 percent of all U.S. soldiers killed during that conflict.

For decades, the U.S. government has had limited resources to bring closure to relatives of service members missing in action, but that has been changing.

In January, the Department of Defense created the POW/MIA Accounting Agency to “more effectively increase the number of missing service personnel accounted for from past conflicts and ensure timely and accurate information is communicated to their families.”

The agency has been meeting with family members across the country to update them on its efforts to bring loved ones home.

Agency staffers use those meetings to gather information about specific missing soldiers and personnel, and give family members the latest information on their loved one. Specialists take DNA samples to be used by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Dover, Delaware.

The latest event for families will be held Saturday in South Portland, just a few days after the country celebrates its veterans.

One of those family members who will attend is John Whitney.

• • •

Whitney, who goes by Jack, lives in Portland’s Deering neighborhood with his wife of 57 years, Madeline.

He’s a veteran, too. He served in the Air Force in the 1950s, mostly in Japan. He and Madeline met when he was stationed at an Air Force base stateside. They have a grown son, who lives in Tennessee, and a granddaughter.

Whitney is 79 now and thinks often of the older brother he never really got to know, although those memories are colored by two things: He was just a boy when his brother went missing some 70 years ago. And he’s battling Alzheimer’s disease.

Madeline does a lot of the talking for her husband now. He has no trouble starting stories, just finishing them. He’s easily confused about things in the present and things in the past, but he understands clearly what happened to his brother.

After his parents died, Whitney ended up with Tommy’s Purple Heart and other military records, including a letter from then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live, and grow, and increase its blessings,” it read. “Freedom lives, and through it, he lives – in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men.”

Asked what he remembers most about his brother, Whitney thought for a minute.

“He was so nice to me,” he said, tenderly. “I don’t know many people who were as nice as he was.”

• • •

Thomas Whitney graduated from Cony High School in Augusta in 1939 and went to work as a salesman for Central Maine Power Co.

However, after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, he couldn’t wait to go into military service, according to his obituary. He enlisted two days after Christmas, choosing the Marines because he wanted “plenty of action.”

After basic training in early 1942, he was sent to the South Pacific, where the U.S. and Allied forces battled the Japanese.

He died in combat in July 1943. There was no major battle at the time.

His family had a memorial service for him a month later in Augusta.

There is a headstone for Thomas Whitney at the Maine Veterans Cemetery.

Jack and Madeline try to visit that grave every Memorial Day, although they acknowledged how strange it is that there is no body buried beneath that stone.

• • •

The number of soldiers missing in action has decreased dramatically since World War II, a sign of how different warfare is today.

According to the Defense Department, there are 7,836 U.S. service members unaccounted for from the Korean War and 1,626 missing from Vietnam.

During the eight years of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there were three.

Of those totals, 11 service members from Maine are missing from the Vietnam War, 45 Mainers are missing from the Korean War and 424 from World War II, according to the Defense Department.

The bodies of missing service members have been periodically discovered over the years, often by coincidence. A construction crew, for instance, might stumble upon human remains buried long ago.

The U.S. made a concerted effort to renew attention early last decade, in large part because more and more historians and local witnesses were dying.

Of the more than 78,000 reported missing during World War II, 5,235 remains have been recovered. An additional 325 more from the Korean War and roughly 1,000 missing in Vietnam have been discovered.

Soldiers missing in action are accounted for every month. On Oct. 15, the DOD confirmed the remains of Army Pvt. John Klopp in Papua New Guinea. He went missing on Dec. 5, 1942.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as finding dog tags with the remains. More recently, DNA testing has been the biggest aid to positive identification.

Jack Whitney already has submitted his DNA, along with thousands of others, to the Defense Department’s growing database.

• • •

Saturday’s event, at the DoubleTree Hotel near the Maine Mall in South Portland, is expected to draw 231 family members from across the Northeast, said Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus with the POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Of those, 48 will be from Maine, representing 19 service members who are MIA.

Bill Paschal Sr., who lives in Springvale, will be there. He’s the oldest living relative of his uncle, Cpl. Herbert Prentice, who was reported missing in Korea in 1950.

Paschal, 67, never met his uncle – he was only 2 years old at the time – but has learned more about him and his family through his genealogy hobby.

He’s been involved with the DOD’s family member network for some time and, like Jack Whitney, submitted his DNA a few years ago. He said the program is great, but he’s realistic about the chances that his uncle’s remains will ever be found.

“I’ve come to the realization that … unless we’re allowed back into North Korea, I’m not sure anything can be done,” he said.

Still, he understands the importance for military families. Paschal and his wife, Ida, are both Army veterans. He served as a medic in Vietnam.

• • •

Other families do get good news, even after decades.

Carol Start, who lives with her husband in Georgetown, got a call six years ago from the Defense Department, asking about her uncle, Army Sgt. Christopher Young Vars, who went missing in November 1950 during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. The family later learned that he was a prisoner of war.

Start was 7 years old at the time and never got to know her uncle, but said her father’s greatest wish before he died in 1993 was to bring his brother home.

She said the Department of Defense had received dozens of boxes of remains from Korea, but those remains were commingled. Still, they suspected Vars might be among them.

After six years and two rounds of DNA testing, Start and her family received confirmation about two months ago that her uncle’s remains were recovered.

She drove to Boston’s Logan Airport on Sept. 9 to greet the plane that carried his flag-draped coffin. Christopher Vars was buried Oct. 6 in a family plot in Everett, Massachusetts – 65 years after he went missing in action.

Start said she will attend Saturday’s event to remind people that, although the odds are not great, her uncle’s story is a reminder of what can happen.

“It took six years, but we had something to bury,” she said. “That meant a lot.”

• • •

Madeline Whitney, who has been coordinating with DOD officials on Saturday’s event, said she was told to bring a photo of the brother-in-law she never got to meet.

She has two photos in mind. Both are black-and-white. One is Tommy’s military photo, and the other shows Tommy and the oldest Whitney child, Justin, holding Jack on their shoulders. Tommy is wearing his uniform in that photo, too. It was a day before he was to leave,

Jack is wearing overalls and a giant smile.

She doesn’t know why she was told to bring a photo, but she’s hopeful that it might be good news. Maybe they found Tommy’s remains. Maybe they will be able to bring him home.

Asked how that might make him feel, Jack thought for a moment. He tried to find the words but couldn’t.

Madeline jumped in: “He’ll probably never stop crying.”

Copy the Story Link