Sister Finally Gets to Say Goodbye to Her Brother 80 Years After He Went Missing During WWII
Staff Sergeant Yuen Hop went missing after his plane was shot down by enemy fire in 1944
More than 80 years after her brother went missing during World War II, a San Francisco woman was finally able to say goodbye.
On Friday, Feb. 7, Staff Sergeant Yuen Hop was laid to rest at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, according to local outlet KABC-TV. It was the first time since 1943 that the serviceman — who went missing after his plane was shot down by enemy fire — was able to return home to California.
“It took a long time, but we have closure now,” Sergeant Hop’s sister Margery Hop Wong, 94, told The New York Times.
Sergeant Hop, who served as waist gunner for the U.S. Air Force, was just 20 years old when the B-17G he and his fellow servicemen were flying was gunned down during a mission in Germany in 1944, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The crew was able to parachute to safety, but some were taken as prisoners of war by the Germans. Three men, including Sergeant Hop, went missing, according to the agency.
“None of us really knew what was going on,” Margery told KABC-TV. She was just a teen when her brother died. Throughout the course of her life, her parents and her five surviving siblings didn’t often talk about her lost brother, the Times reported.
After six years of investigation, the three men who went missing were declared “non-recoverable,” according to the Defense POW agency. Sergeant Hop was posthumously awarded a number of medals, including a Purple Heart.
San Francisco Police Department
SFPD escorts remains of Staff Sergeant Yuen HopIn 2013, American and German researchers started digging into Sergeant Hop’s case again. Eventually, Nicole Eilers, a historian with the Department of Defense, and others investigating the case learned that the three missing airmen were captured by German SS troops and were killed on their way to a P.O.W. camp, according to the Times.
Remains were found in a cemetery in Kamp-Bornhofen, allowing Eilers to confirm that Sergeant Hop had been buried there.
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“It’s an incredible moment,” said Eilers of solving such a case, according to the newspaper. “I’m not going to give up on these guys ever.”
Margery told KABC-TV that she and her husband were “shocked” to get the news of her brother’s location after so many years had passed.
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The funeral was a special moment with her extended family. They were finally able to say farewell.
“Keep looking and keep asking,” Margery told the outlet about others looking for answers. “I don't think they should give up hope… because you never know.”
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