US-Burma Plan MIA Search as Ties Improve

One of his sisters wrote to the US government, year after year, asking for any news. She died a month before Clarence's remains were found in 2001 by an American missionary who ran into an old man describing wreckage of an aircraft near his village.

Robert Frantz, the only one of six brothers and sisters still living, received an identification bracelet that was found at the crash site; their mother had given it to Clarence. Before his death at age 24, he had mailed an engagement ring to his high school sweetheart.

“But he never got home to get married,” said Robert.