63 years later, flier to be buried

GORHAM, Maine - The remains of a World War II pilot from Maine killed when his plane crashed during a test flight in Alaska 63 years ago will be buried tomorrow in Arlington National Cemetery.

The military used DNA analysis to identify remains found at a remote crash site as those of Army Air Corps Second Lieutenant Harold Hoskin, a 22-year-old Houlton native.

Hoskin's B-24 bomber went down in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve on Dec. 21, 1943, when an engine malfunctioned during a cold-weather test of the plane's propeller systems.

One of the five crew members, Second Lieutenant Leon Crane, survived and made it back to his base months later after wandering in the wilderness and living off food stores from trappers' cabins. He led searchers to the crash site, where they located the remains of two crewmen but found no trace of Hoskin, who was erroneously believed to have parachuted from the plane.

After several artifacts were uncovered at the crash site three years ago, military investigators returned and recovered bone fragments. The identification was announced in March after the DNA was found to match that of Hoskin's younger brother John, a retired minister in Gorham.

Harold Hoskin had dreams of becoming a doctor and was attending Bates College when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He left college and joined the Army a few months later in 1942.

After completing pilot training, Hoskin married his girlfriend, Mary, and the couple were awaiting the birth of their first child at the time of the crash.

She was never able to discuss her husband's death and did not remarry for more than two decades.

Mary Hoskin died in 2004.

"Any time I ever asked her about it, she would cry," said their daughter, Joann Goldstein, 63, of Punta Gorda, Fla.

The investigation helped close gaps in the Hoskins' family history.

At the urging of family members, Goldstein this summer went through the wartime letters written by Hoskin that his wife had boxed up.

When asked what her mother would think of the coming burial ceremony, Goldstein said, "I think she would be honored that he's being honored."