GLEN ARBOR — Porter Pile had a college degree in business administration and a wife named Barbara Jane Harper, according to an old newspaper clipping.
He had two sisters, a mother and a father. He was 24 years old. He had a hometown of Harlingen, Texas, and a birthplace in Joplin, Mo.
In the U.S. Army Air Forces, Pile had a rank — second lieutenant — and an assignment with a squadron of the 445th Bombardment Group. As of April 8, 1944, he had a commission as a navigator.
Pile had experience, having flown 21 missions before the Sept. 27, 1944, bombing run. When he was last seen alive, he had a parachute and a mind to jump out of his badly damaged ride, a B-24 Liberator on its way back to England from a mission to Kassel, Germany, during World War II.
But, for 78 years since that day, he was a letter and four numbers, one of a set of unidentified remains from the plane’s crash site. His official designation was missing in action, presumed dead.
Now, Porter Pile has been identified and his remains will soon have a resting place and headstone in Arlington National Cemetery, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
His surviving family finally have the knowledge of what happened to a son, brother and brother-in-law, husband and U.S. Airman.
Jim Baynham flew on that same mission, he said in an email. He and his entire crew jumped out of their B-24 after the fourth wave of Luftwaffe fighters hit it — about 150 German fighter planes hit the 445th that day, according to various accounts of the battle.
The bomb bay of Baynham’s plane was on fire and fuel was leaking from the containers above it, he said. Some of those who landed were captured and murdered — Baynham was taken prisoner, according to the Kassel Mission Historical Society.
While Baynham, who lives near Dallas, doesn’t remember Pile or the others recently identified, he said some of his crew also were not identified for years after the war. For their families, it must have been a sorrow so deep he can’t imagine.
“And now, 79 years after their suffering began, it is here still, although of course it will be tempered with love and relief,” he said. “God bless them all.”
When Linda Dewey of Glen Arbor learned that Pile had been identified, she was thrilled.
She’s the president emeritus of the Kassel Mission Historical Society, which works to honor the veterans of the Kassel mission, of which her father Bill was one. That organization has grown to include people across the U.S., with help from England and Germany, too.
Linda Dewey said she remembers the silhouette of her father as he sat on her bedside, telling her and her sister the story of Kassel mission. He used his hand, thumb and pinky extended, to show how his plane moved.
Bill Dewey in 1989 founded the Kassel Mission Memorial Association, and Linda Dewey became involved when she moved to Glen Arbor. She took over for her dad in 2004 a few years before he died in 2007. (That association eventually merged into the Kassel Mission Historical Society.)
While Linda Dewey’s father made it back from the Kassel raid despite his plane crash-landing, she later learned that a third of the 336 men in the 445th were killed while another third were captured, she said.
The group Bill founded helped place a monument in Germany to both the U.S. and German personnel who died in the air battle, Linda said. Later, it became active in pushing the U.S. Department of Defense to identify the remains of eight unidentified men.
An excavation at the crash site near Richelsdorf found Pile’s and James Triplett’s remains in 1951, although neither could be identified at the time, according to the DPAA. Triplett was the plane’s radio operator, and he and Pile were among six in their plane who were killed out of their crew of nine.
Linda Dewey said two other excavations in 2015 and 2016 looked for more remains at the crash site.
Agency historians’ research helped determine both sets of remains were strong candidates for identification. Both had been buried overseas, one in Belgium and another in Tunisia, and the DPAA had each disinterred and sent to the U.S.
Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA helped identify Pile’s remains, as did anthropological, dental and circumstantial evidence.
Linda Dewey said she and the organization worked to bring eight men from the 445th’s Kassel raid, listed as missing in action, to the Department of Defense’s attention. The DPAA has a huge backlog and there have been plenty of “hurry up and wait” moments.
“So there’s been so much time where we push and we do as much as we can, and then you have to wait,” she said.
Linda is hopeful there will be developments soon for the remaining six. There will still be plenty for the organization to do once they’re identified, including raising awareness of the battle. That includes promoting the various books written about it since Bill Dewey started the group.
While Linda Dewey said advocacy led to Pile’s identification, she insisted the story isn’t about her. She credited the entire organization and its members’ efforts over the years, as well as the Department of Defense for its work to bring Pile back to the U.S.
“And that’s what this is about, honoring and recognizing the people who gave their lives for their country,” she said.
Baynham said he still grieves for those who flew that day and didn’t make it home.
“Thank God there are a few more now close enough that their loved ones can feel their presence,” he said.