Betsy Kline
Castlegar News
More than 100 people gathered at the West Kootenay Regional Airport on Saturday to pay their respects to Sgt. Eric Mitchell Honeyman, a US airman whose plane went down Dec. 23, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge.
Representatives from the US and Canadian militaries, RCMP, Royal Canadian Legion, Air Cadets, Castlegar city council and Honeyman family joined grateful citizens as they honoured the World War II soldier.
Others lined up along the route of the procession waving Canadian flags.
The wreckage of Honeyman’s plane wasn’t discovered until six years ago in Belgium. After several years of research and recovery efforts, Honeyman’s remains, along with those of five other members of the B-26 crew were returned to their families, and on Saturday escorted from a DNA testing facility in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to Castlegar to be met by the formal receiving line.
Honeyman was buried with military honours Monday in Trail alongside relatives. Although the lost soldier grew up in California, when the family was asked where they wanted his remains to stay, they decided on Trail, where his grandparents are buried.
— With files from the Trail Times