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Wartime Heritage ASSOCIATION
Remembering World War II
Harold Elton Hoskin
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Name: Harold Elton Hoskin Rank: Second Lieutenant Service Number: 0-736523 Service: Weather Testing Detachment, Air Transport Command, United States Army Air Force Date of Birth: April 9, 1921 Place of Birth: Houlton, Aroostook County, Maine Date of Enlistment: April 13, 1942 Place of Enlistment: Dow Field, Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine Address at Enlistment: Houlton, Aroostook Co., Maine Age at Enlistment: 21 Height: 5 feet, 7 inches Occupation: Actor Marital Status: Single (at enlistment) Religion: Unknown Next of Kin: George Hoskin (Father) Date of Death: December 21, 1943 Age: 22 Cemetery: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia Grave: Section 60, Grave 310 Harold Elton Hoskin was the son of George Sandoe Hoskin (1881–1950) and Eva Almeda (Cosseboom) Hoskin (1883–1973). Harold’s father was born in Londonderry, Colchester Co., Nova Scotia, and his mother was born in Maine. Harold had two siblings - John S. Hoskin and Edith May Hoskin [later Bolster] (1912–1999). Harold’s father was working as a real estate agent in 1940, and the family was still living in Houlton, Aroostook Co., Maine. Harold enrolled in Bates College to study medicine but left after Pearl Harbor to enlist in the US Army Air Corps. After enlisting in the spring of 1942, Harold married Mary Roberta (McIntosh) Hoskin Scovill (1921–2004) in Pima, Arizona, on January 19, 1943; likely where he was stationed during training. The Davis–Monthan Army Air Field was there. Mary was born in Littleton, Aroostook County, Maine. They had one daughter, Joann Hoskin (later Goldstein). In 2004, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) received information from a National Park Service Historian regarding a possible WWII crash site in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska. Lieutenant Hoskin was one of five men who were flying in a B-24 Liberator that crashed while on a cold-weather test flight December 21, 1943, flying from Ladd Field in Fairbanks, North Star Borough, Alaska. He led a crew of five assigned to test the bomber's propeller systems in cold weather. An engine malfunctioned during the flight and sent the plane into a downward spiral, according to military documents. Search teams could not find the wreckage for months. The aircraft never returned to base and it was not located in subsequent search attempts. The following March, one of the crewmen, 1st Lt. Leon Crane, arrived at Ladd Field after spending more than two months in the Alaska wilderness. He said that the plane had crashed after it lost an engine, and Crane and another crewmember, Master Sgt. Richard L. Pompeo, parachuted from the aircraft before it crashed. Crane did not know what happened to Pompeo after they bailed out. In October 1944, Crane assisted a recovery team in locating the crash. They recovered the remains of two of the crewmen, 1st Lt. James B. Sibert and Staff Sgt. Ralph S. Wenz. Hoskin's remains were not found and it was concluded that he probably parachuted out of the aircraft before it crashed. With no body recovered, Harold was listed on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing of the Honolulu Memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Lieutenant Harold Elton Hoskin's remains were discovered in August 2006 and identified in April 2007. His remains were interred during a service at Arlington National Cemetery on September 7, 2007. When an individual’s remains have been accounted for by the U.S. Department of Defense, a rosette is placed next to the name on the Wall/Tablet/Court of the Missing to mark that the person now rests in a known gravesite.
Harold’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery in 2007