Gov. Steve Beshear has directed that flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff on Monday in honor of a Marion soldier who died during World War II.After 63 years, the remains of 2nd Lt. Howard C. Enoch Jr., U.S. Army Air Forces, of Marion, were identified this summer. His remains will be buried on Monday in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Gov. Beshear has directed that flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset on that day.
On March 19, 1945, Lt. Enoch was the pilot of a P-51D Mustang that crashed while engaging enemy aircraft about 20 miles east of Leipzig, near the village of Doberschütz, Germany. His remains were not recovered at the time, and Soviet occupation of eastern Germany precluded his recovery immediately after the war.
In 2004, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveyed a possible P-51 crash site near Doberschütz. The team found aircraft wreckage. In 2006, another JPAC team excavated the site and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage.
Last month, the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) identified Lt. Enoch's remains and returned them to his family for burial with full military honors.
