CATONSVILLE, Md. — A bombing raid over a Nazi aircraft factory in Occupied France cost Technical Sergeant Martin Bacon his life and those of most of his squad when their plane was shot down.
Now, his ultimate sacrifice takes center stage with a burial at Baltimore National Cemetery in Catonsville, and it doesn’t end here.
WATCH: Fallen WWII soldier laid to rest in Baltimore
“To go to so much trouble to identify,” said Fort Meade Post Chaplain Col. Keith Goode, “To go to so much work to make sure not just you can say goodbye, but all the loved ones of that whole bomber crew could say goodbye.”
In a twist, we’ve learned that Tech Sgt. Bacon’s remains were believed to have been returned here to this cemetery for burial decades ago.
Bacon’s nephew, Bill “Buzzy” Bacon, recalls weekly visits to the gravesite as a child.
“Germans had put his dog tags attached to the body bag so we knew something was involved, but, yes, my father would bring us, my brothers and I when we were kids, on Sunday after church. We went to the monastery, and he’d use that spicket down there and he’d put water on brother’s grave,” Bacon recounted, “He missed his big brother really, really bad.”
Bacon says during trips to Normandy beginning a quarter of a century ago, he learned three of his uncle’s squad members who had never been identified were buried there.
DNA testing ultimately proved Tech Sergeant Bacon was one of them, and the person buried so long ago in Catonsville was not.
“We were missing three crew members---bombardier, navigator and the radio operator, and these fellows flew together for a year or so in the same airplane, and I had to think about this really hard, ‘What would dad do?’,” said Bacon’s nephew, “but I was in the Air Force, and I know what they all would have done. We’ll get everybody right.”
Before Tuesday’s burial, the mistaken remains were exhumed and will be transported to the Midwest where the remains of what are presumed to be Bacon’s other unidentified squadron members have been flown in from France to try to determine who’s who.
“They go back to Nebraska to the lab that through DNA testing, other scientific measures that they have, military documentation that another family will get closure,” said Dignified Transfer Coordinator Mike Dunn.