In the decades following the death of her uncle, Staff Sgt. John J. Bono, shot down in Germany during World War II, Mary Jo Urban wondered whether she’d ever find closure.
Her husband, Virgil, tried to provide some, spending hours on the Internet, searching for clues to the location of the remains. A cousin traveled to the Netherlands, where he found Bono’s name on a wall at a military cemetery listing missing-in-action soldiers, but there wasn’t an accompanying body.
On Tuesday, more than 67 years after the B-17G Flying Fortress that carried her uncle and eight other crewmen crashed, Urban at last gained a measure of peace: Bono’s remains were flown to Denver and returned to Urban and her family.
“He’s home. This was the last piece to our family’s puzzle, and now it’s all put together,” Mary Jo Urban said. “Today was out of this world for me.”
Urban was only 7 years old when John Bono, a native of Denver, was killed. Still, she had fond memories of him, including a calendar and lace doily that he’d gotten for her while on leave in Switzerland.
At the time, Urban’s grandmother, living with her family, insisted her son would come home, and through the years, the clan did their best to keep at least his memory alive.
“We have pictures of him in scrapbooks, pictures of him getting married,” said Urban, 75. “My two daughters knew about him, and I always wondered what happened to him.”
That curiosity brought about Virgil Urban’s exhaustive, albeit fruitless, searches. But little did the family know that there were others who also had long been involved.
In 1991, a German man digging a grave for his father-in-law discovered a set of dog tags from a U.S. soldier. Although he notified officials, the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command wasn’t able to gain access to the site until 2007.
The next year, the organization excavated the cemetery and found a grave with the remains of three soldiers. There also was a set of dog tags belonging to Bono — complete with part of an Immaculate Heart of Mary medal that Urban’s mother had given to him when he entered the service.
The military then began the process of separating the remains and trying to determine the soldiers’ identities. About a year ago, they called Urban and asked for a DNA sample, although, rather than telling her about the remains, the office merely said it was creating a file for missing soldiers.
“That’s done out of consideration for the families,” said Jessica Pierno, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense’s POW/Missing Personnel Office. “The DNA is taken for exclusionary purposes; you don’t want to give families false hope.”
Indeed, Urban said she never thought anything would come from the sample, so when the telephone call came saying that a match had been found, “I was in shock.”
On Friday, Staff Sgt. John J. Bono, his remains brought into Fort Logan National Cemetery on a horse-drawn carriage, will receive a full military funeral, complete with a fly-over.
“Of course, you’re sad that he was killed, but to have this happen is still joyous,” Urban said. “It’s really wonderful.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
