A Canadian airman shot down over Germany more than seven decades ago has finally been laid to rest.
Flight Sgt. John Joseph Carey was killed on Aug. 28, 1942 when his plane was downed by fighter aircraft during the Second World War.
The bomb-filled plane ended up at the bottom of Laacher See, just south of Bonn, Germany.
While conducting a series of dives to assess the stability of the aircraft’s cargo, a team of German explosive experts recovered human remains in 2008.
But they were only identified as belonging to Carey this past February, a couple of months after the youngest of Carey’s three brothers provided a DNA sample.
That brother, Ken Carey, died in late May at the age of 90.
Still, some of Carey’s family members were on hand Wednesday as the former airman was finally buried with military honours at the Rheinberg War Cemetery in Germany – a site where more than 3,300 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War are commemorated.
“We are finally able to pay tribute to this Canadian hero, who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement Wednesday. “It pleases me to know that Flight Sergeant Carey will be laid to rest with the dignity and respect he so greatly deserves.”
The 22-year-old Carey was born in Winnipeg, and later called Ottawa home. He and six other servicemen took off from a RAF base in England on Aug. 28, 1942 in a Halifax bomber before being shot down.
Three men survived the crash, while the bodies of two others were recovered in 1947. The remains of one airman still have not been recovered.
