Bringing Our MIAs Home

Finally Welcoming Them Home: Project Recover fundraiser spearheaded by Clifton High freshmen highlights three Bosque County soldiers missing in action at the tail end of World War II

CLIFTON – For family members with a soldier missing in action, a lifelong of void and feeling loss started with a Western Union telegram from an army adjutant, with the sentence “The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son …has been reported missing in action. If any further details or other information are received, you will be promptly notified.”

And sometimes, the families never received any further communications about their loved ones, having to assume them dead, and without having definitive closure, still hoping for their return, even after decades. Families have remembered their fallen soldiers, but not daring to have an official memorial.

Together with the Clifton High School Freshman Honors English class, teacher Gaye Lynn Seawright is organizing a memorial at the Clifton Independent School District Performance Arts Center on May 5 at 2 p.m. for three Bosque County soldiers missing in action at the tail end of World War II. The three veterans are U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sergeant John Fletcher Coston, U.S. Navy Reserves Seaman 1st Class Robert H. Walsleben, and U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sergeant Roland Ludvig Zander. The “Honor Our Heroes” ceremony is free of charge and open to the public.

Alongside tables with information on the three soldiers being honored that day, will be a “Missing Man” table for all soldiers missing in action. The table with a white tablecloth, a book of faith, an inverted glass, a lit candle, and a single red rose in a vase with a red or yellow ribbon symbolizes the void felt by their absence and the everlasting hope of their return.

Besides memorials for the three MIA soldiers, the full-length documentary “To What Remains” about the 10-year search to find tail gunner and SSgt Jimmy Doyle’s Arnett B-24 that was downed near the Palau Islands, will be shown to educate the public on the work of Project Recover and its impact on families of veterans missing in action.

The list of dignitaries to the May 5 event include U.S. Congressman John Carter, a representative from United States Senator Ted Cruz’ office, District 22 Texas Senator Brian Birdwell, District 13 Texas State Representative Angelia Orr and District 56 Texas State Representative for Waco “Doc” Anderson. A patriotic quilt made by Dianne Merghardt will be raffled off as part of the event’s fundraiser. There will also be a three-gun salute outside and music by Brian Barrett.

“Initially I thought to do a small event, but then it turned out that none of these soldiers have had a memorial service, so that became our driving force,” Seawright said. “My hope is that we pack the PAC in honor of these men and their families. They deserve not to be forgotten and be remembered for what they did.”

If you plan to attend the event, please register at gayelynn.seawright@cliftonisd.org or michelle@projectrecover.org.

“There are so many layers of emotions connected to having a soldier missing in action,” Seawright said. “Families feel great loss, alongside pride and patriotism for the sacrifice to their country. But the void remains in the families. Just knowing where their soldier’s lie gives them peace. Bringing their remains home, brings closure.”

Seawright herself is a Gold Star MIA family member. While doing research on her husband’s relative on his mother’s side Walsleben, she saw Discovery’s Josh Gates show Expedition Unknown in Dec. 2023 about a Project Recover mission in Micronesia. Seawright was fascinated to learn that through the serial number and tail numbers on the plane, the team could identify who the victims would have been. At that point she went to the web address and saw how she could improve her research.

The crew of a PB4Y-1 Liberator – a version of the B-24 – took off from the airfield on Morotai Island on a reconnaissance mission on Feb. 6, 1946. On board was gunner, R.H. Walsleben. The plane was probably downed in deep water near Nansei Shoto of the Ryukyu Islands on the boundary between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea. Just a week prior the crew had sunk a Japanese min sub.

Airmen who flew the Liberator took to naming the airframe the “Flying Coffin” due to its singular entry point near the rear of the aircraft. With only a single point of exit, and far from the majority of the crew, it was nearly impossible for them to leave in an emergency.

Seawright wanted to organize a memorial for Walsleben, and in the course of her planning, she discovered that two other Bosque County WWII soldiers were also MIA. At that point, she decided to expand the event and include her students in the project, as it fit the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements. Coston was also lost in the Pacific arena, while Zander was lost in Europe, in the English Channel.

As they got deeper into the subject, the students became more and more engaged, especially when it turned out that some of them knew families of the MIA soldiers. Walsleben was born and raised in Valley Mills and graduated from VMHS. Zander was a CHS graduate and related to present freshman Zac Zander. Coston was born in Valley Mills and attended Cranfills Gap HS.

The students worked on speeches, articles, flyers and posters, certificates and every other facet of event production for this very special memorial ceremony like inviting dignitaries, elected officials, active military, members of the Bosque River Valley Daughters of the American Revolution, the Bosque County Genealogical and Historical Society, first responders like Emergency Medical Technicians, Police Departments, Volunteer firefighters, members from Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, and the families of the MIA soldiers. Project Recover’s Director of Community and Donor Relations Michelle Abbey is flying in from her home base Oregon.

The students also did genealogy research on the three soldiers, getting to know them on a deeper level – piecing together who they were, what they did. This literally brought the soldiers to life for them. Snippets of information found along the way, along with photos were placed on a memorial wall in the class room. “I am so proud of these kids, and the work they are putting into this, above their normal class work,” Seawright said.

During a research session, one of her students came across a live link on FindAGrave with a niece of Howard Edward Sires, the pilot of Walsleben’s plane that fatal day. The niece went on to send Seawright an enlarged and colorized canvas photo of the crew, standing in front of their aircraft. The photo’s caption was the poetic “They flew solo into the Rising Sun and touched the face of God.”

Locating an MIA is possible, profound, and statistically rare. Still, it is very possible to learn more about your family’s MIA through their military records. For over 30 years, Project Recover has been the nation’s leading citizen-led, non-profit organization to search, locate, document, recover, and repatriate the over 81,500 American service members missing in action and to bring recognition and closure to the estimated 5,000,000 MIA Gold Star family members. Over 4,100 Texas solders are still MIA.

Recovery missions of missing service members can cost from $500,000 to $1 million dollars. That cost pales in comparison to their ultimate sacrifice of their lives and the cost of loss to their families. To be able to fulfill their mission, to keeping America’s promise to bring home all of its soldiers that fell in battle, Project Recover regularly holds fundraisers. And that promise does not have an expiration date.

Project Recover is a collaborative effort to enlist 21st century science and technology in a quest to find and repatriate Americans missing in action since World War II, in order to provide recognition and closure for families and the Nation. The dedicated professionals and technical volunteers feel their efforts are a sacred mission and are very passionate about it. The nation’s debt of gratitude cannot remain unpaid to the service men and women who lost their lives fighting for their nation.

More than 20 years ago, Pat Scannon was reading a book late at night on World War II in the Pacific. On the last page of the book, the author included a quote from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon. While Binyon wrote this poem in 1914 to honor those lost in the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, Pat found that stanza universally applicable nearly 100 years later. The poem spoke to his heart and became the heart of Project Recover’s mission.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them” – Laurence Binyon

Project Recover has completed over 75 missions in 21 countries, discovered and documented more than 75 aircraft associated with MIAs, developed a growing database of more than 700 cases associated with more than 3,000 MIAs, accounted for over 80 missing-in-action service members, and have helped to bring home 17 American heroes. Often, just receiving more information on the circumstances of their deaths already helps families fill some of the void they feel.

In 2012, Project Recover partnered with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Delaware’s School of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. These collaborations, along with Project Recover’s partnership with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and Legion Underseas Services, have enabled Project Recover to document dozens of war sites associated with hundreds of MIAs.

“So many teachers and their students have helped,” Seawright said. “From making decorations, floral designs, doing video and sound, band students playing Taps. I want to thank everybody, the CISD staff and administration for their support as this project grew.”

With this special ceremony and fundraiser, Seawright and her students are making sure the Bosque County MIA soldiers who gave the most for their country are honored in a way they deserve, and keep their memories alive.

“Dying for freedom isn’t the worst thing that can happen,” Gold Star Mother Georgie Carter-Krell said. “Being forgotten is.” For more information about Project Recover, visit www. projectrecover.org/ about/.

Photos courtesy of GAYE LYNN SEAWRIGHT & PROJECT RECOVERY