2nd Lt. Harold Hoskin, an Army Air Corps pilot, never walked out of the Yukon. A crew member did survive, however, and his incredible return set off a chain of events that concluded when Harold Hoskin's remains are buried more than 60 years after his death. He finally got the military honors he deserves. What researchers found helped dust off a chapter of Hoskin family history that was incomplete and seldom-discussed after the war. Harold was a 22-year-old Houlton native with a child on the way and dreams of becoming a doctor when he flew a B-24 bomber (#42-40910) out of Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Dec. 21, 1943. He led a crew of five assigned to test the bomber's propeller systems in cold weather. An engine malfunctioned during the flight and sent the plane into a downward spiral. It started falling apart in the air. The bomber crashed on a remote mountain. Search teams could not find the wreckage for months. Then 2nd Lt. Leon Crane, one of the five crew members, returned to the base after wandering in the wilderness and living off of food stores from trapper's cabins. Crane led searchers to the crash site, where they found the remains of two other crewmen. But they never found Harold's body and assumed he was the last crew member to parachute from the bomber. But Harold never left the plane. A former National Park Historian convinced military investigators to return to the site after he discovered several artifacts, including parachute harness buckles, at the largely intact crash site. The team recovered bone fragments from the plane wreckage. John Hoskin was contacted, the pilot's only remaining sibling, and asked for a DNA sample. Harold was in a zoology laboratory at Bates College in Lewiston when he learned Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. He left college and joined the Army almost two months later, at the end of January 1942. He married his girlfriend, Mary, days after he finished pilot training a year later. The couple was eagerly awaited the birth of their first child at the time of the crash. Mary gave birth to their daughter five months later. In the meantime, she boxed up every letter from her husband, could not discuss his death and did not remarry for more than two decades. She died in 2004. 60 years after he first went MIA, an unopened box of more than 50 letters were finally read. Two lines from the stack of notes stood out: In a letter to Mary on his way to officer training, Harold Hoskin called World War II "the most important war we've ever had to fight." Another, written to his wife shortly after he got his assignment in Alaska, said, "It looks as though Dick will see his proud papa, because there is no combat involved in this job." Harold then asked his wife if she would be ashamed of him if he never saw combat.

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Army Service No. (ASN): #O-736523
U.S. Army Air Forces, Weather Testing Detachment, Air Transport Command

Harold E. Hoskin is listed under Finding Of Death in the 1946 Army and Army Air Forces Personnel Casualty List for Aroostook County, Maine.

***I would like to thank Elizabeth Reed Find A Grave ID 46561848 for creating this memorial in addition to adding her photos to it***

***I would like to thank Anne Cady Find A Grave ID 46985237 for adding her gravesite photo to this memorial***

***I would like to thank Luna and Me Find A Grave ID 50129314 for updating the inscription and birth/death location information on this memorial***