A Hero's Homecoming - Lt. Blaine Wilcox Laid To Rest In Glenwood Cemetery

U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Blaine B. Wilcox was finally laid to rest in the Glenwood Cemetery along side members of his family on Oct. 7, exactly 81 years to the day after the 26-year-old bombardier was killed in action on a mission over Europe.

Lt. Wilcox  was buried with full military honors on a sunny fall afternoon in the presence of surviving relatives and others who attended the service as a show of respect and gratitude for the World War II hero.

During World War II, Wilcox served as a bombardier assigned to 613th Bombardment Squadron, 401st Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force. On Oct. 7, 1944, during a bombing mission targeting a German synthetic oil refinery in Politz, Germany, Wilcox’s B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed near the village of Kattenhof, Germany. All nine crewmembers, including Wilcox, 26, were killed.

His remains were not declared “accounted for” until April 2025 following years of investigation by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). His remains were brought home Friday, Oct. 3, during Glenwood’s annual Homecoming celebration.

“How can you not be elated? All these years,” said Doug Aistrope, a great nephew of Lt. Wilcox. “They brought him in on Homecoming and we’re burying him on the day he died.

“It couldn’t be any better. It will bring some real closure to the family, too. You never ever thought you would see this day.”

In 1948, an investigation by the American Graves Registration Command in Widziensko, Poland (previously in Hohenbruck, Germany), resulted in the recovery of five sets of remains from graves marked with American aircrew helmets. Two sets were identified as crew members from Lt. Wilcox’s aircraft. The commingled and badly burned remains of three other individuals were found in a common grave without a casket. These remains were transported to the U.S. Military Cemetery in Neuville (now Ardennes American Cemetery) in Belgium and designated as unknowns X-7543, X-7544, and X-7545.

It was later determined that these three unknowns were the only recoverable remains associated with unresolved casualties from Lt. Wilcox’s crew, and all seven missing crew members were designated “recovered.” These remains were reinterred in a group burial at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Ky., in February 1950.

In 2019, a DPAA investigation team traveled to Poland and surveyed several American aircraft crash sites in the area of Police, Poland. Investigators determined that one of these sites, located near the village of Katy, likely belonged to Lt. Wilcox’s aircraft.

While investigating incidents near Police, local third-party researchers informed DPAA personnel that an elderly witness claimed to have seen three or four unknown airmen fall from the sky near the village of Budzien in 1944. Members of the German Luftwaffe buried the remains of the unknown airmen in unmarked graves in the village cemetery in Budzien.

In January 2022, another DPAA investigation team returned to Poland to continue searching for missing Americans near Police. Believing the 1944 burial in Budzien may have been associated with unaccounted-for airmen from several American aircraft that crashed in the area, investigators surveyed the abandoned cemetery and determined several unmarked burials were present in the area indicated by the witness.

In November 2022, DPAA personnel, along with a team from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland, led by Dr. Andrzej Ossowski, exhumed the graves and discovered remains buried with equipment and clothing belonging to American airmen from World War II. The remains were transported to the DPAA Laboratory.

To identify Wilcox’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and dental analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Aistrope said family members were skeptical when first learning that Lt. Wilcox’s remains had been positively identified.

“They had an astronomical amount of research they had to do, but they said they didn’t have to do any DNA because everything matched up so well, the dental records and everything,” said Aistrope. “They had all the pieces put together. We have all the pictures of that - it’s overwhelming actually.”

Lt. Wilcox received several medals for his service, including the Purple Heart; Air Medal; American Campaign Medal; European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal; World War II Victory Medal and the Honorable Service Lapel Button WW II. Before getting commissioned, he married Wanda Durkee in 1941, and they had a son, David.

Lt. Wilcox, who is survived today by several distant relatives, was one of two sons HB and Cecil Wilcox (Anderson) lost in World War II.

On July 24, 1944, less than three months before Lt. Wilcox was killed in action, his brother, Flight Officer Stewart Laval Wilcox, 21, went missing in action and was later reported killed over the English Channel when his 10-member crew was forced to bail out with parachutes and life belts over the water. All of the men except Flight Officer Wilcox were picked up and reported safe.

The Wilcox brothers were together the night before Stewart Laval Wilcox went missing in action, according to a letter Blaine sent to his parents after his brother was reported MIA.