Florence woman lays brother to rest more than 70 years after his plane was shot down during WWII

By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor

When Jacqueline “Jackie” Laird of Florence buried her brother’s remains at Arlington National Cemetery in August, it brought closure to a search that spanned seven decades and parts of two centuries.

“It was so wonderful to be able to put him to rest where he belongs, after all of these years,” Laird said.

S/SGT Swalwell

As with so many of the estimated 84,000 missing soldiers from America’s 20th century wars, it was a day she thought might never come.

The story began during World War II on Dec. 23, 1944 when the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region of Europe was at its height.

Laird’s brother, Army S/Sgt Ward C. Swalwell Jr., was a 21-year-old radio gunner from Chicago with the 599^th Bomb Squadron, 397^th Bomb Group.

Laird, now 88, recounts incidents from that day as if they just happened.

She said the 397th was eager to provide air support for the troops, who were “getting slaughtered,” but the weather was so bad, they couldn’t get off the ground.

“When the clouds cleared the planes took off,” Laird said. “They were supposed to bomb the Eller Bridge over the Moselle River.”

Jackie and Warren Laird in their Florence home with a tribute board dedicated to her brother. S/SGT Ward Swalwell Jr. of Chicago was shot down during the Battle of the Bulge in 1943 (photos by Mark Hansel).

There were more than 30 planes in the grouping that flew in a box formation. Her brother’s Martin B-26 Marauder twin-engine bomber, was at the extreme right back.

“They went up without an escort, which was a no-no, but it was dire circumstances,” Laird said. “When they got to a certain point, near Malmedy, the Germans were waiting for them and they were the first plane hit.”

The plane was struck in the right motor, spun in, hit the ground and exploded. There were no survivors, only pieces and parts scattered across the countryside.

Laird was just 16 when the family got the news of her brother’s death via telegram in January.

“In the B-26, the gunner sits in the belly of the plane,” Laird said. “When the first hit came, I think it probably got him. I’d like to think that.”

Ten American planes were shot down that day and all were accounted for except Swalwell’s, which was called Hunconscious.

“They went down in Belgium,” Laird said “They found no trace and no eyewitnesses.”

Another plane that was shot down shortly after Swalwell’s, the Bank Nite Betty, landed half in Belgium and half in Germany.

A piece of metal recovered from the Martin B-26 Marauder twin-engine bomber shot down in the Ardennes region.

When search teams began to look for wreckage, they thought everything they found was part of Bank Nite Betty, and that’s what was reported.

The story might have ended there, but in 2006 a German citizen wandering in the densely forested Ardennes found a three-inch-by-five-inch piece of leather clothing.

It included a laundry mark with the letter “H” followed by some numbers.

The effort to identify the source of the clothing began and an American Army Sergeant called from Germany to ask Laird if she, by chance, still had the flight crew report.

“My mother (Lenore Swalwell) had kept every piece of paper and I had that,” Laird said. “The number on that piece of clothing, was in every part of the report, so they knew one of the men from the plan had to be in that location, because his garment was there.”

An organization called History Flight, whose mission is to recover missing American servicemen, took a crew to the site and started digging in the area, which was as large as three football fields.

Everything blew in front of a large crater and the group began the tedious recovery operation. They dug in four-foot by four-foot grids and used sifters to locate debris and remains.

The first summer, there were four recovery crews that worked from June through September and camped out at the site.

“It was remarkable dedication,” Laird said. “When the recovery crews worked, they didn’t tell anything about what they found or where they found it. That would raise hope for some of the families and they didn’t want to do that until they were sure.”

Items recovered from the Hunconscious, including a relatively intact round of ammunition.

Laird and her husband, Warren Laird moved to Florence in 1999, which turned out to be very fortuitous in aiding the search to locate and identify her brother’s remains.

In 2009, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) had a meeting for families of missing servicemen in Cincinnati and Laird attended. She agreed to submit to a DNA test to see if any of the remains belonged to her brother.

“They took my name and sent me a kit through the mail and I gave them a swab and mailed it back,” Laird said.

With still no word from JPAC, the Laird’s visited the site of the crash in early 2012.

“There was a two-lane winding road and one side was Belgium and on the other was Germany,” Laird said. “We had a little memorial service. The priest was German, and couldn’t speak a word of English, but we did enjoy it.”

In April, 2012, Laird was working around the house when a woman called from Fort Knox.

“She said, I’m sitting here, with something that has just come in, and it’s your brother’s dog tags,” Laird said. “They are bent and burned, but I have them in a safe deposit box. It was such a wonderful feeling”

The search team also found bones from a left foot and two pieces of a fibula that they were able to determine belonged to S/SGT Swalwell using Laird’s DNA, as well as debris from the plane.

In 2007, the Laird’s had also visited the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial because they have marble pylons with the names of all the missing from the Battle of the Bulge.

She was able to find the names of her brother and the five other crew members from the Hunconscious, all of whom have since been identified. All were just 21 years old at the time of the crash, except the pilot, Lt. William P. Cook of Alameda, California, who was 26.

The names will now have a star placed next to them indicating that they have been found.

Laird chose to have her brother’s remains buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. A ceremony took place in August of last year and about 40 members of her family showed up.

Warren Laird was a Marine who served near the end of World War II, but did not see combat duty. While he never met his brother-in-law, he feels a strong connection to him.

“I feel like I’ve come to know him through this search,” he said. “It’s been a long adventure that was finally bought to an end at Arlington National Cemetery.

The men of the Hunconscious

The family of co-pilot Arthur Lefevre, of Red Bank, New Jersey, also chose to have his remains buried at Arlington and representatives for each member of the Hunconscious crew were there.

Also on hand were members of the search team, including two men from Belgium who have helped retrieve remnants from the Battle of the Bulge since they were 14.

There was a gathering before the ceremony and each family member was given an opportunity to speak.

“Of course, I had to get up and tell my story,” Laird said.

There was a chapel service for the group and remains of the crew not used for identification were buried on August 18, as were those of Lefevre.

Two days later, in a separate ceremony, S/SGT Ward Swalwell, Jr. was laid to rest.

Laird said she wanted to bury her brother at Arlington because it would be easier for family members to visit. She wanted to have a separate ceremony because of the personal connection to her brother.

“I felt that they didn’t work at it quite like I did, because this was a goal of mine and I was the only blood relative there,” she said. “They never knew the people that died that day, but I did. He was my brother.”

Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com