James O'Rourke
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Staff Sgt. James T. Moran's burial in Arlington National Cemetery next month will provide an ending of sorts to the mystery of a young man who disappeared over the jungles of New Guinea during World War II.
For his family, though, the decades-long tale leaves some questions unanswered.
The Department of Defense announced Thursday that remains from Moran, along with 10 other crewmembers on a B-24 Liberator bomber that disappeared in November 1943, had been identified and would be buried with full military honors.
For Sandy Ward, 54, Moran's niece who lives in Montebello, and the rest of the Moran clan who have known about the plane crash since the 1980s, confirmation of what the family has known for decades comes years too late.
Ward's mother, Grace Moran Ward, 81, said the family has been begging the military to identify the remains of the airmen first discovered in 1984.
"The place was found back in the 1980s. In 1994, I submitted my DNA to the military," she said from her home in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "Since then, our family members have been dying, and it's been sad because everybody had hoped to see my brother's remains taken care of properly."
James Moran was the third of 11 children, a kind and generous artistic type who quit high school before his senior year so he could work to help support his younger siblings.
When the family moved from Moscow, Pa., to Sloatsburg in December 1941, they found their first day in their new home to be a date that would live in infamy.
"The first day in Sloatsburg was the shocking day when we'd been attacked at Pearl Harbor," Moran Ward said. "My parents knew that all of my brothers were sitting ducks for the draft."
In 1942, Moran, all 5-feet-6 and 115 pounds of him, was drafted into the Army.
Moran Ward said that despite being drafted and not having the chance to select his branch of service, her brother was pleased to be in the Army Air Force.
"Just like every other fella, he knew that it was going to happen. They didn't want to be drafted into a service they didn't want to be in," she said. "He felt fortunate that he was selected for flight training. It was a step above plodding with the Army foot soldiers."
By 1943, Moran and the rest of the crew were flying over the island of New Guinea on path to bomb Japanese ships in the Pacific, Moran Ward said.
On Nov. 20 of that year, the crew took off from Jackson Airfield at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, radioed in about 20 miles northeast of the city and were never heard from again.
When the news hit Sloatsburg, further tragedy befell the Moran family.
A brother, Joseph Moran Jr., had driven his father and a family friend to the telegram office to notify a family member who was also serving in the military. As the three were returning home, they were struck head-on by another car.
Joseph Moran Jr. died instantly. Joseph Moran Sr. was severely injured and left unable to work for seven years.
James Moran's disappearance left a hole in the family, one made deeper by the loss of Joseph Jr., and as years passed and the war ended, the family was still left with its grief.
"VE-Day was no great celebration for my family. Much of Sloatsburg was out hurraying, but ours were never going to come back," Moran Ward said, adding that many families experienced similar feelings.
In 1984, a plane crash site was brought to the attention of the U.S. by the Papua New Guinea government.
Moran Ward and Justin Taylan, whose website Pacificwrecks.org advocates for faster recovery and swifter identification of those missing in action, said a serial number found on the plane should have served as clear evidence for identifying exactly who had been on board.
Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/ MIA office, felt differently.
"There are hundreds of plane crashes on Papua New Guinea, and it took quite awhile for our teams to verify which plane was being talked about," Greer said. "One thing we've learned is that it's not a good idea to prematurely call family members and give them information that's wrong. It took awhile to have enough confidence in what had been found."
Greer said the matter was complicated by a host of issues.
The plane was in a remote site prone to landslides, and once the remains were recovered from the native people, the military then had to track down family members for each of the men suspected of being on board.
Greer added that obtaining DNA samples from each of the 11 families also presented a challenge — even today, he said, sufficient remains from four of the 11 men have not been recovered for individual identification.
"It is sad, and I do understand what the families are saying," Greer said. "I wish we had the power to speed those kinds of things up, but we just don't."
Taylan said he was pleased the flight crew is finally receiving proper honors, but that the government needs to do more to identify the nation's missing in action.
"Most World War II remains and missing can be affordably located usually with good historical research, speaking to locals and persistence," Taylan said. "Since 'no man left behind' is part of the U.S. military's promise to our war dead, the price tag of recovering any American from any war should never be too high."
Though she wonders why the military didn't proceed with a group burial when the plane was first found, Moran Ward said the four surviving siblings, along with their children, hope to be there March 24 to honor their brother.
Proud of James Moran's service, she still wonders what might have been had he not been generous to the point of giving his life for his country.
"He never lived to be a father or an uncle," Moran Ward said. "He's got 20 nieces and nephews, but he never heard the word 'uncle.' "
