Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:09 am
One final
search for
MIAs
The leader of the MIA Hunters, a
group that searches for missing
WWII soldiers, recently completed
his final voyage with the group.
By ALEX EBERT, Star Tribune
Last update: June 28, 2010 - 11:47 PM
Last month, at age 82, Bryan Moon led one
last adventure into the jungle in search of
America's missing soldiers.
Moon has spent the last 20 years wading
through New Guinea streams, being chased
by warring native tribes and fleeing gunfire
from Italian mobsters -- all while tracking
down crash sites of World War II airmen
missing in action.
Moon, through his nonprofit MIA Hunters,
led 32 volunteers, including 25 from
Minnesota, on a search for crash sites and
closure for missing soldiers' families. The
group was the largest such U.S. civilian
mission ever.
Using firsthand accounts from villagers and
pilots' families, they said they found 50
possible sites of downed American pilots.
That information, turned over to the U.S.
government, could help answer questions
about what happened to 250 or more lost
airmen.
At a press conference on Monday at a
Bloomington hotel, Richard Carroll, an 89-
year-old WWII veteran who still has a
German bullet lodged in his heart, thanked
the volunteers for searching for his fellow
soldiers. He was shot down and captured in
Hungary in 1944 and was considered MIA for
six months.
"Every POW was once an MIA," said a tearful
Carroll, who lives in Eagan. "You can't
imagine the feeling that I have today, how to
express my thanks to you people."
A passion for the missing
Moon, a retired Northwest Airlines vice
president, found his passion for MIAs
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through his curiosity about planes.
Moon went to China in 1990 to search for
missing WWII bombers. He found three, and
one still had human remains inside. That
prompted him to research missing WWII
soldiers -- a staggering 76,000.
"That was the number that blew me away and
made me an MIA hunter," he said.
Since that trip, Moon and his family have
spent countless hours researching possible
crash sites, organizing trips overseas and
searching for missing Americans.
The trips weren't smooth sailing. In southern
Italy, group members were shot at and their
plane caught on fire. On another trip through
the jungle, scouts led the mission through a
warring tribe's territory. The MIA Hunters
had to be airlifted out of a battle.
The crew always made light of the danger and
came back for more, said Dona Moon,
Moon's daughter-in-law. On the May trip,
guides killed a python and threw it on her as
a joke. The joke became dinner.
"I may just start a cooking show called
'Cooking with Dona' because I cooked the
python," she said.
On Monday volunteers chatted while crew
cameraman Kyle Gallagher played a DVD
compilation of the group's jungle journey,
complete with rocky cliff climbs and nervous
volunteers crossing a raging river on a
rickety makeshift bridge made of branches.
"No one said it would be easy," Moon said
with a chuckle.
Reaching difficult places
Despite physical obstacles and funding woes,
MIA Hunters potentially helped locate
hundreds of missing soldiers.
Crews hired locals to find sites where "white
people haven't been before," Moon said. Then
volunteers went places even the government
couldn't because of politics. The volunteers
pay their own way, which can cost up to
$11,000. None are allowed to take valuable
vintage materials found at the sites.
In 2009 the U.S. Department of Defense
recognized the MIA Hunters as the most
successful civilian assistance group for
finding MIA soldiers. In all, volunteers have
located 89 American, Japanese, German and
Italian MIAs. During his time as group leader,
Moon has been invited to the White House
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and spoken with the media.
Moon said he wants to pass on the torch and
hopes to spend more time with his wife,
Cicely, who is battling cancer.
"Everything above my neck is working, but
everything below can't make another trip,"
Moon said.
He admits it will be hard to pass on what he
has committed his retired life to doing.
"I get letters every week saying, 'Can you find
my father? Can you find my brother?'" he s
aid. "I don't know who can or will take this
on; this is a full-time job."