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by Sue Orsen/The Victoria Gazette “Heaven Can Wait” is the name of a B-24 U.S. bomber plane that was shot down by the enemy on March 11th, 1944, in the throes of World War II. All eleven U.S. crew members perished, none having reached the prime of their lives, some just barely 20, some married and expecting their first child back home in America, some already young fathers. Ironically, it seems Heaven Couldn’t Wait. They shall not grow old. Among the eleven was Staff Sergeant John W. Emmer Jr. He was survived by his parents John W. Sr. and Theresa Emmer of Minneapolis, two sisters, three brothers, and nieces and nephews not yet born, including Jim Emmer of Victoria, Minnesota. Jim was born three years after his Uncle John went missing in action. “Missing In Action” is the terminology used in regard to the eleven crew members of Heaven Can Wait even though there were eye witnesses to the fatal gun strike and subsequent nose dive of their plane into the Pacific Ocean near Papua New Guinea. Human remains have not yet been the focus. The following story is possible because the Victoria Gazette was invited by Jim and Nan Emmer to a gathering of family members of the Heaven Can Wait crew. That gathering, also called a reunion, was held in Victoria on Saturday, October 13th. The occasion was in celebration of the recent discovery of the B-24 bomber scattered piecemeal on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. *** John W. Emmer Jr. graduated from De La Salle High School in Minneapolis and attended St. Thomas College. The obituary reports that he enlisted in March, 1941, and received basic training at Camp Leonard Wood, Missouri. He went to Australia in January, 1942. In December, 1943, while in New Guinea, he transferred to the Air Corps. Sergeant Emmer was an aerial photographer-gunner killed in action near Wewak, New Guinea, on March 11th, 1944, three years to the month after enlisting. He was 26 years old when Heaven Can Wait crashed to its death. The underwater resting place of the B-24 was only discovered in the fall of 2017 about a mile off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 213 feet of water. It was discovered by a team called Project Recover. Confirmation of its identity occurred in May, 2018. Jim Emmer received the call this spring on Memorial Day Weekend. “I was in a cemetery at Mendota Heights when I got a phone call and press release about my Uncle John’s plane being found,” he said. “I had no idea it would impact me like that. It was quite a Memorial Day!” John W. Emmer Jr. had been missing for 74 years. *** The Project Recover team, which arrived at Hansa Bay on the north coast of Papua New Guinea in October, 2017, was assisted by four years of research on circumstances of the crash, especially the research efforts of family members of one of the eleven crewmen who went down with the plane. That passionate search for Heaven Can Wait began with Sandy Althaus, a first cousin of crew member Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Kelly Jr., and her son Scott Althaus who is a political scientist at the University of Illinois. A resident at Austin, Texas, Sandy Althaus and her son Scott and grandson Curtiss of Chicago were in Victoria for the Saturday, October 13th, reunion along with approximately 100 other Heaven Can Wait family members from across the nation. They gathered to meet each other, to meet the deep sea divers, to hear firsthand details, and to see graphic presentations in regard to the underwater discovery.
THE REST OF THE STORY APPEARS IN THE PAPER EDITION OF THE GAZETTE.
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November 2018 |