Remains identified of Wisconsin airman who died during World War II bombing mission over Germany

RACINE, Wis. — Military scientists have identified the remains of a Wisconsin airman who died during World War II when his plane was shot down over Germany during a bombing mission.

The remains of U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph H. Bode, 20, of Racine, were identified using anthropological analysis and mitochondrial DNA, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Thursday.

Bode was a tail gunner aboard a B-24H Liberator with a crew of nine when it was shot down over Kassel, Germany, on Sept. 27, 1944, while returning to England after completing a bombing run.

Several crew members who bailed out of the crippled plane said they didn’t see Bode escape before it crashed, the DPAA said in a news release.

German forces captured three crew members after the crash and held them as prisoners of war, but Bode wasn’t among them and the War Department declared him dead in September 1945.

Remains from a crash site near Richelsdorf, Germany, were recovered after locals notified military officials in 1951 that several bombers had crashed during the war in a wooded area. But those remains could not be identified at the time.

In April 2018, two sets of remains were exhumed from cemeteries in Luxembourg and Tunisia, and one of them was identified in late 2023 as those of Bode, the DPAA said.

Bode’s remains will be buried in Racine on Sept. 27, the agency said.