Pat Ranfrantz at the Yap Island Crash Site of Lt jg Harry Dugan Brown
Our first success working with History Flight and Missing Air Crew was the location of the Jenny, the sister of Harry Brown, who was killed while flying his VF-20 F6F-5 Hellcat on a routine mission over Yap Island on September 6, 1944. Jenny is the ideal mitochondrial family reference for Harry’s future DNA identification.
Harry’s family was very challenging to locate, considering how much time had elapsed since his death and the fact that his family name is one of the most common in the US. Another difficulty was that his father was listed with a different family name in Harry’s casualty records, implying that Harry had been adopted.
Nevertheless, Identifinders was able to locate Harry’s sister and her family, who had never been told the details about what happened to him. We hope to be able to perform the same miracle for the families of other servicemen, bringing them much needed closure after so many decades of not knowing what happened to their loved ones.