Bonnie Rolquin believes she was 10 when a cousin came to visit her family on Long lsland, New York.
Her cousin, Charles C. Palmer Jr., was 16. They played together during the visit, as much as they could with the age difference and having never met.
It’s a faint and bittersweet memory for Rolquin, now 98, who lives in Bonita Springs.
Palmer was killed during World War II in Germany in 1944 when he was 19. His remains were missing for decades and identified earlier this year, said the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
The agency’s mission is to “provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.”
He was in a B-24H Liberator bomber
Palmer is getting a military hero’s welcome home after all these years.
A private ceremony with his remains is scheduled for June 5 on the tarmac at Southwest Florida International Airport with military honors. A local visitation, open to the public, will be held at Shikany Funeral Home in Bonita Springs on June 6.
On June 8 at Sarasota National Cemetery there will be a funeral and reinternment with a military fly over at 11:55 a.m.
The flyover will be with members of the 700th Airlift Squadron from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia.
The squadron is the modern-day descendant of the 700th Bombardment Squadron, the unit Palmer was serving in when his B-24H Liberator bomber was shot down.
There will be a presentation of the U.S. flag to Rolquin, the solemn military tradition of gratitude for a loved one’s honorable service.
“It will be very emotional, a military event like this,” she said. “I am glad I was here for Charles to come home to. That’s the way I feel.”
He had been memorialized on the Wall of the Missing at the Luxembourg American Cemetery.
Young and patriotic
Palmer was born Feb. 9, 1925, in Griswold, Iowa to farmers. He was an only son.
He entered the miliary, the U.S. Army Air Forces, from California. Right before enlisting he married Patsy B. Palmer from Wichita Falls, Texas.
Rolquin and her family believe he lied about his age and said he was 18 to enlist. He was 17 and did not have parental consent. The family does not know if he completed high school.
The military puts his death at age 20.
In the fall of 1944, Palmer was assigned to the 700th Bombardment Squadron, 445th Bombardment Group, 2nd Air Division.
He was the top turret gunner on a B-24H Liberator when his plane was shot down during the Kassel mission in Germany on Sept. 27, 1944. He was one of nine crew members.
After successfully dropping its bombs, the aircraft was on its return flight to England when its formation was attacked by numerous German fighter planes.
The B-24 was badly damaged. Three crew members bailed out and were taken prisoner by German forces and eventually returned to U.S. custody.
The aircraft crashed near Richelsdorf, Germany, according to records. The remaining six crew members were believed to have gone down with the plane or lost while attempting to bail out. Palmer was one of them. He was among the crew not found.
The 445th Bombardment Group suffered the largest loss of any Army Air Forces group in the entire war during the Kassel mission. All told, 25 Liberators were shot down.
The crash site of Palmer’s bomber was discovered by the American Graves Registration Command outside Richelsdorf, Germany.
An identification tag and human remains were discovered in 1951. The remains could not be identified.
In 2015 and 2016, three recovery teams performed excavation operations at the site. Remains recovered then and in 1951 were consolidated and laboratory tests using modern forensic techniques identified them as belonging to Palmer.
Family ties run deep
Out of the blue, U.S. Army officials contacted Rolquin in 2020. She also received a letter with information about her cousin.
She remembers from her childhood that he had enlisted; her mother and Palmer’s mother were sisters.
She doesn’t remember much more about her cousin.
“We knew he had died in the war,” she said. “It was a sad time. There was so much going on at the time.”
Palmer’s widow, who is deceased, never remarried. They had no children.
When Army officials contacted Rolquin six years ago they asked if they could send a DNA kit by FedEx. They wanted her to submit a cheek swab. The military was trying to identify remains.
“That is all we knew,” Rolquin said. “We said, ‘Oh sure.’”
Nothing happened and she forgot about the cheek swab.
Until this past March. She was contacted again by the Army. An appointment was made for an officer to come to her home in Bonita Springs.
“It was just an amazing thing that happened,” she said.
The officer explained how her cousin’s remains were identified, how they found his military identification, or dog tag, at the site near where his bomber went down.
The identification tag was charred but still had his name, according to Pam Watson, Rolquin’s daughter.
“It is amazing,” Watson, of Naples, said. “They truly don’t leave a soldier behind.”
Palmer received numerous medals and decorations posthumously, including the Purple Heart.
The officer presented the medals to Rolquin on that day in March and offered to have a shadow box display made. He delivered it May 17.
Never could Rolquin have imagined the upcoming ceremonies would be the result of a cheek swab six years ago, of helping to bring her cousin home as his only living relative.
It is at the Sarasota cemetery where Rolquin’s late husband, Edward R. Rolquin, also a WWII veteran, is buried.
About a dozen family members, including grandchildren, will attend the ceremonies at the Fort Myers airport and in Sarasota to honor Palmer.
“There is closure and a proper honoring his services and giving him a proper service,” Watson said.
It is a wonderful feeling, even though Rolquin said she will be prepared with five handkerchiefs.
“It is something so different, to have a soldier come to your door, in full uniform,” she said. “It has been a very emotional journey for all of us, and we are still on this journey.”
The family will host a visitation, open to the public, at Shikany Funeral Home on Saturday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The address is 28300 Tamiami Trail S. in Bonita Springs.
The military honors in Sarasota will be at 11:30 a.m. June 8 at Sarasota National Cemetery, 9810 State Road 72. The military flyover will be at 11:55 a.m.
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Liz Freeman is a health care reporter. Reach her by emailing lfreeman@naplesnews.com
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This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: WW II soldier coming home to SW Florida after 80 years
Reporting by Liz Freeman, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
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