Here is my letter From Hal Geer-World War 11 Veteran- 95 years young! :>) Thanks to 25Kingman49 for helping me with this!

golfnlady

Ok, guys so hope I'm not driving you all crazy as this story is doing to me.. I just recieved the accident report & as everyone has told me Uncle Dick was not listed on it. SO, how did the ArmyAirforce account for his body? What happened to his dog tags? It doesn't make sense to me..

 
Vicky,
 
He was counted, and accounted, by using his dog tags; not the paper form reporting the plane missing.  One should have remained with his body when it was buried in China. I don't know where the second one would have gone.
 
I don't remember if you said his family received formal notice of his death, but such would have been generated by his unit or by personnel at his "home station."  In the case of 341st BmGp' personnel, their commander would try to send a personal letter of condolence, with simple or in depth description of circumstances.  On a few occasions this did not occur, because the Commander was among the dead or missing.
 
For reasons as yet unknown, Dick Arbogast was not listed on the crew list for this plane; what would be called a manifest if he had been aboard a transport aircraft.  I have no information to support my thoughts, but I think there are two possible explanations:
     1) He "hitched a ride", possibly at the last minute, or
     2) Since the destination base (Kweilin) is responsible for filing the report and simply used the mission crew list from when the plane departed on the sea sweep the day before.
In either case, the administrative personnel apparently didn't know he was on board the plane when they initiated the MACR. 
 
Why it wasn't corrected most probably has to do two things. First, the plane was soon found and the men were recovered and buried. Second, the 14th AF was in the middle of the Japanese ground offensive which was forcing evacuation of American bases, one after the other.  Then the error was not noted and/or corrected after the war, possibly because of the time demanded for accounting for the hundreds of men still missing.
 
 
 

tonystro

He was counted, and accounted, by using his dog tags; not the paper form reporting the plane missing.  One should have remained with his body when it was buried in China. I don't know where the second one would have gone. 

 
We'll find out more when her uncle's IDPF is received -- I noted in my uncle's file that the dog tags were not accounted for, or at least not mentioned, in any of his interment reports.  The method of I.D. that is listed down the chain of paperwork is "Name, grade, serial no. on paper attached to coffin," or "substitute Info tag on box" and "Form 1042 in box."  There is a space for an impression of identification tag (dog tag outline) on one form but it is blank. 

  For reasons as yet unknown, Dick Arbogast was not listed on the crew list for this plane; what would be called a manifest if he had been aboard a transport aircraft.  I have no information to support my thoughts, but I think there are two possible explanations:
    1) He "hitched a ride", possibly at the last minute, or
    2) Since the destination base (Kweilin) is responsible for filing the report and simply used the mission crew list from when the plane departed on the sea sweep the day before.
In either case, the administrative personnel apparently didn't know he was on board the plane when they initiated the MACR. 

Mr. Geer's recounting states "the two planes were taxiing toward the runway in Kweilin when I hailed one of them to stop.  Dick loaded aboard and they soon took off."  He did report the addition to the plane's crew to the Operations Officer after driving across the runway following the planes' departure.
 It wiould seem that Mr. Geer's recounting of the circumstances of the loss is the most accurate and complete considering the official records are lacking.
 
As Mr. Geer was Arbogast's commanding officer, wouldn't he have been responsible for the letter of condolence?
 
-- Alan

Yes, what a day... I still can't thinking about finding us all connected like this. Truely amazing..:>) They all died so young & served their country with unbelievable courage and adversities..