Crash site of the Globemaster airplane. (U.S. Air Force photo)
An Iowa woman who has hoped for years to have the remains of her brother returned to a proper resting place is finally getting her wish.
Vicki Kelso Dodson of Nevada, was notified that the remains of her brother, Airman Wayne Dean Jackson of Downing, Missouri have been identified along with those of another Missouri man.
Jackson died when the C-124 Globemaster he and 52 other men were on crashed into a mountain while on the way to an Alaska air base in 1952. Dodson was seven when Jackson died, and says her mother wanted to see his body returned, and it’s been a life goal of hers.
Wayne Jackson
“She said to me every day,’if I could get his body off that mountain, he hates snow, he hates cold, if I could bring him home'”, Dodson says. Dodson says Jackson will be buried in the Downing City Cemetery, where there is already a marker for him between his parents graves. “They put a tombstone up, and it has a picture of a C-124 Globemaster on it. That’s what he was in when he was killed,” according to Dodson.
Her mother died several years ago, but Dodson never forgot her desire to see Jackson’s body returned to Missouri. “And she would say, ‘if I can bring his body home’,” Dodson says. “And she’s been gone now for 16 years, but she said that every day to me. And, I’m gonna bring him home.” Dodson was notified Friday that the remains had been identified.
She will meet with the military to discuss arrangements for Jackson’s burial.
Thanks to Mike Lear of the Missourinet.