Sebastopol California

Yuen Hop, age 20, from Sonoma County Sebastopol, California .

Parents: Gin Hop

Service era: World War II
Schools: Analy High

Date of death: Friday, December 29, 1944
Death details: On June 18, 2024, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Staff Sergeant Yuen Hop, missing from World War II. Staff Sergeant Hop entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from California and served in the 368th Bombardment Group, 306th Bombardment Squadron. On December 29, 1944, he was a waist gunner aboard a B-17G Flying Fortress (serial number 43-39031) with nine crew members, which took part in a large-scale bombing mission to support the Battle of the Bulge. While flying over its target, the B-17G was hit twice by heavy enemy aircraft fire. All crew members were able to parachute from the plane before it crashed. Five crew members successfully landed and were taken as prisoners of war by German soldiers and were eventually returned to U.S. custody. One crew member was found deceased by German soldiers in the woods near Oesterich, Germany, and was reportedly buried in a local cemetery. The remaining three crew members, including S Sgt Hop, were unaccounted-for, and there was no record of them being held as POWs. In 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, began investigating several crash sites from downed aircraft of the Bingen air raid. Local German citizens were interviewed, and several accounts were recorded seeing American troops landing by parachutes. One airman was recovered by a local civilian who took him in and provided aid, but the airman was ultimately taken into custody by German military authorities. Investigations continued for several years, but by April 1950 AGRC exhausted all efforts to recover the three missing men and issued a recommendation they be declared non-recoverable. In 2013, DPAA researchers working in collaboration with local Germans recovered documents from the state archive at Koblenz, which appeared to contain information on the loss of three captured airmen. These documents referenced a War Crimes case which indicated S Sgt Hop was captured and killed by German SS troops near the town of Kamp-Bornhofen, and buried in the local cemetery there. Neither S Sgt Hop, nor his two missing crewmates were ever officially registered as POWs, which explains why American investigators were unable to ascertain their fate during or after the war. Between May 2021 and August 2022, DPAA teams began excavation of a suspected burial site in the Kamp-Bornhofen Cemetery, where the three airmen were believed to be buried. Under the supervision and direction of two Scientific Recovery Experts, the team recovered possible osseous remains and associated materials. These items were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis and identification. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between a portion of the remains and S Sgt Hop.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Sonoma West Times and News (1945)