Military Burial for Vet Killed in ’52 Crash
WHITTIER, Calif. – An Air Force veteran whose body lay lost in the snow of an Alaskan glacier for six decades has been buried with military honors in California.The remains of Engolf Welton Hagen were laid to rest on Friday near his parents’ grave at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, the Orange County Register reported.
His youngest sister, Eleanor Yeager, 84, of Corona del Mar, attended the burial. She gingerly touched the box containing his cremated rib, forearm, and hand – all that could be recovered from the crash site.
The remains were identified through DNA supplied by Hagen’s oldest female relative – sister Violet Wacker – who has since died.
Hagen, then a 28-year-old technical sergeant, died when a C-124 Globemaster carrying 52 passengers smashed into the Knik Glacier northeast of Anchorage during cloudy weather and exploded on Nov. 22, 1952. The wreckage fell onto the Colony Glacier and was covered with snow before the remains could be found.
The crash site was rediscovered on June 10, 2012, by an Alaskan Army National Guard helicopter crew during a training mission.
Eventually, 17 of the 52 victims were identified from recovered remains.
Yeager said her brother was the sixth of 10 children who were raised on a farm in Roseau, Minn. “He was always a great brother to me, a great companion,” she said.
Read more at https://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140824_Military_burial_for_vet_killed_in__52_crash#VBpqtTfAuj25Qo6s.99
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