(Tribune News Service) —  On June 12, 1940 — just over a year before the U.S. was drawn into World War II — 19-year-old Ernest Pugh joined the Army. He was a new graduate of Botetourt High School in Gloucester and was stationed at what was then called Langley Field.

In May 1942, Pugh was shipped off to Australia to support the war effort. He was a member of the 30th Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group.

On the stormy night of Sept. 15, 1942, he flew with a group of B-17s out of an airfield near Port Moresby on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea over the Owen Stanley mountains, and up to East New Britain to attack Rabaul, home to a large Japanese military base.

Pugh’s B-17 lost contact with their base shortly after takeoff. At 1:30 the next morning, the crew was declared missing in action. Neither Pugh nor the nine others aboard were ever heard from again.

On Jan. 7, 1946, they were officially declared deceased.

Over eight decades had passed since his disappearance when in April 2023, a logging company was drilling a road up a mountain cloud forest in East New Britain when their equipment hit the engine of a plane.

The crew sent pictures of the crash site to the National Magazine and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea, which called the United States Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

“We knew from the photos right away,” said Dr. Kyle Bracken, DPAA’s Indo-Pacific World War II Chief of Research. “The photos were of exactly what we were looking for.”

Historian Justin Taylan, founder of the database Pacific Wrecks, a nonprofit documenting Pacific World War II history, was able to ascend the mountain in June 2023 and photograph the B-17. On the engines, he found the stenciled serial number associated with Pugh’s aircraft: 41-24427.

“There is no doubt the crash site is this missing bomber and likely contains the remains of the crew,” Taylan told the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal.

The DPAA arrived a few weeks later to investigate the site. It also confirmed that the plane was the same bomber that carried Pugh and his fellow crew members.

But when a DPAA crew arrived in East New Britain to begin the recovery in 2024, they found the logging road washed out and the trail impassable.

“The reason we were able to access (the site) fairly easily (in 2023) was because of the logging road, which coincidentally became the source of our challenges when we tried to field a recovery in 2024,” said Bracken.

Two years after the plane’s discovery, the site remains unrecovered.

The location of the crash, 6,000 feet up, is remote and subject to severe weather. Though Bracken described the site as having a “high probability” of having remains, no date has been set for a future recovery effort.

Even under the best of conditions, the process for a recovery operation is lengthy and involved. It includes a large crew and can require living out of a makeshift base camp for up to three months.

“The big difference between an investigation and a recovery is a recovery requires a lot more people,” said Bracken. “It’s basically a full scale archeological operation.”

He said the DPAA hoped to do that this year, but was unable to find an effective way to do so.

“Our hope now is that we’ll be able to get that one across the finish line in 2026,” said Bracken. “It’s a priority for us. It’s a site that we’re really excited to get back to.”

“Like putting a puzzle together”

In late 2024, Meredith Larsen was scrolling through a Facebook group dedicated to missing WWII soldiers when a post caught her eye.

Larsen, a school counselor in the Bay Area, became interested in these stories after discovering a box belonging to her husband’s grandmother’s first husband, an airman who went missing in action over the Baltic Sea.

“I started researching him throughout the pandemic and I learned all of the corners of the internet where things are kept,” Larsen said. “It’s incredible what you can find on people who served in World War II.”

Since then, Larsen has become a regular contributor to online forums and assists with research when she can. The post she saw that day came from the family of Sgt. Glenn Keclik.

They had discovered an entry on Pacific Wrecks, detailing the discovery of a B-17 in Papua New Guinea. Keclik had served as a gunner on the bomber when it vanished in 1942. According to Larsen, this was the family’s first indication that the aircraft had been found.

She began digging further and quickly became captivated by the story of another crew member: Sgt. Ernest Pugh.

Pugh, she learned, was a foster child, just like the man whose belongings had sparked her interest in WWII research. He had been adopted by George and Sarah Jane Walker of Sassafras, Virginia. He met Dorothy “Dot” Pierce at the Post Exchange on the base at Langley, and the two were married in Hampton on May 1, 1942, the same month he shipped out. But tracking down information about him was difficult. With no direct bloodline, leads were scarce.

“I thought, we’ve got to find somebody that cares about this guy,” said Larsen. “There’s got to be somebody.”

Pugh’s Individual Deceased Personnel File listed only his wife, Dot, and her mother, Erma, as next of kin. At the time of his death, Pugh’s personal effects included a towel, a sweater, magazines, toiletries, a mirror, a diary, stationery and $5.62 — about $111 today — all of which were returned to Dot at the Washington Street address in Hampton where she lived with her mother.

Dot waited for years, holding onto hope from the time he was declared missing until he was officially listed as deceased.

Larsen reached out to Barbara King, a self-described amateur genealogist. The two began piecing together Pugh’s life, reaching out to potential relatives and combing through records.

“Like putting a puzzle together,” said King.

But progress was slow. Pugh’s marriage certificate listed his parents as “Emma Coleman” and “Lee Pugh,” but searches for those names led nowhere.

King, a military widow herself, felt a deep personal connection to Ernest’s story.

“My heart was very much for Ernest in trying to find a family member because this young man was so young, only married a week and gave his life for his country only to be forgotten about,” she said. “And it just broke my heart.”

A breakthrough

This month, Steve Pugh of Richmond received a message from a friend who had just read a story in the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal about a local World War II airman named Ernest.

“She said, ‘Not only does this guy have your last name, but he actually looks like you,’” Steve recalled.

“I discovered that (Ernest) was from Buena Vista,” said Steve. “That’s what immediately made me go, ‘Wait a second.’ ”

Steve’s grandfather, born just three years before Ernest, was also from the small town of Buena Vista, near Lexington along Interstate 81. Steve requested Ernest’s birth certificate from the Virginia Department of Health. He immediately recognized the name listed as Ernest’s mother.

“Eva Corinne Pugh,” Steve said. “My great-grandfather’s sister.”

Ernest, it turned out, was Steve’s first cousin twice removed.

It’s unclear why Ernest listed different parents — “Emma Coleman” and “Lee Pugh” — on his marriage certificate.

Over two weeks, he combed through online records and a genealogy book written by a relative in 2007. He learned that Ernest’s mother, Eva, was institutionalized when Ernest was 7. She died in 1930, leaving behind four children, including Ernest and an older son, Omer.

Omer’s son, Omer Jr., also lives in the Richmond area, along with his son, Todd Pugh.

On Aug. 22, Steve, Omer Jr. and Todd met for lunch. They talked for three hours, learning about one another and their shared history. Then came a surprising realization.

“As the crow flies, (Todd) lives less than a mile from me and has for over 20 years,” said Steve. “I just can’t believe how close our lives are.”

Steve said Omer Jr. submitted DNA to help identify Ernest once recovery efforts begin. Steve said he hopes the story stays alive and that Ernest and his crew will finally get the commemoration they deserve.

“You want to make sure that you give people a proper burial,” he said. “It’s sad when somebody just kind of disappeared and never really got that.”

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has reiterated its commitment to closing this case. Dr. Kyle Bracken noted that in Papua New Guinea alone, more than 3,700 WWII service members remain missing. Across the Asia-Pacific Theater, that number rises to over 50,000.

The Pacific theater hosted deadly terrain. In areas like New Britain, Allied forces faced not only enemy fire, but also the challenges of isolation, disease, dense jungles and mountains. Bodies were often lost in the jungle or swallowed by the ocean.

“The biggest thing that we try and convey to family members is that we’re out there looking for them, and that’s not going to change,” Bracken said.

Meredith Larsen, who is also awaiting the return of her own loved one’s remains, hopes for action soon. She’s spoken with several families of the B-17’s crew, including Glenda Keclik, daughter of Glenn Keclik, who was just an infant when her father disappeared.

Glenda is now 83 and still waiting for the chance to bury him, Larsen said.

“We just really want that closure,” said Larsen. “I’ve been fortunate enough to go to two funerals for World War II veterans that were missing and then brought back here in California. They get a ceremony with full honors and it’s very touching. So I just can’t wait for that to happen for these families.”

As for Steve, he’s thankful this discovery brought him closer to his roots and to family he never knew existed. He says they’re planning a gathering in Richmond.

“We’d be crazy not to,” he said. “Life’s too short.”

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