Buried in Ice
For more than 60 years, the body of Leo Mustonen lay frozen in a block of ice, high in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Now, his remains have been returned to his family for burial.

On Nov. 18, 1942, Leo Mustonen departed on a routine training mission with three other airmen from Mather Field, Calif. But their flight over the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range ended in tragedy. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft did not return to base, and a month-long search produced no results.

Then in October 2005, two men hiking on Mendel Glacier in Kings Canyon National Park in central California discovered a vintage U.S. Army parachute fluttering in the wind. Next, they found the body of a man packed inside solid ice, well-preserved except for the protruding head and right arm. The ice also had preserved part of a name tag, Army Air Corps insignia, and a fountain pen.

Park rangers and a forensic anthropologist from DoD’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command recovered the remains, which later were identified, using mitochondrial DNA, as those of Mustonen.

Raised in Brainerd, Minn., 22-year-old Mustonen had joined the Army and was training to be a navigator. Army officials say he likely bailed out of the AT-7 but his parachute failed to open.

Mustonen was buried March 25 in Brainerd. The discovery of his remains is the final piece in a 60-year mystery. In 1947, hikers on Darwin Glacier, which is next to the Mendel Glacier, had discovered his aircraft’s wreckage. The remains of three of the crew found at the site were buried that year in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.

B-52 Birthday

The B-52 Stratofortress marked its 50th anniversary of combat readiness in March. The 93rd Bombardment Wing was declared combat-ready March 12, 1956, after being activated June 29, 1955.

Although it had been declared combat-ready for 10 years, the first time a B-52 was involved in combat wasn’t until June 18, 1965, when aircrews were in Vietnam. The B-52s were used for high-altitude, long-range bombardment and reconnaissance.

“No other strike platform has demonstrated the versatility necessary to meet national security requirements across the spectrum of conflict: from current-day Afghanistan, the Cold War, and Desert Storm; from small-scale contingencies to superpower politics of the Cold War,” says Lt. Col. Parker Northrup, 11th Bomb Squadron commander. A flyover at the former Castle AFB, Calif., was held to celebrate the anniversary.