'He Gave His Ultimate': Lost Korean War Airman Finally Comes Home
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Airman 2nd Class Verne Budahn was just 19, a year out of high school and serving in the United States Air Force during the Korean War.
He was aboard a C-124 Globemaster aircraft along with 51 others, headed to an Air Force base in Alaska.
"They were in bad weather and somehow the plane got 30 miles off course and slammed into a mountain," said Steve Budahn, the airman's nephew.
Budahn and crew crashed onto the Colony Glacier, about 50 miles east of Anchorage. In November 1952, the wreckage was initially confirmed, but the glacial ice was too risky to attempt any kind of recovery.
Back home in Arlington, Minnesota, Budahn's family grieved without his body to lay to rest.
"They wanted to give information about the crash site, and from what I learned, his mother never accepted he was gone," said Bruce Budahn, his nephew.
Sixty years later in 2012, an Alaska National Guard crew rediscovered the original wreckage. But the moving river of glacial ice had moved it 10 miles away. Every year since then, recovery teams have a narrow window of time and weather to safely venture onto the glacier to recover what they can.
"This last time out this year they found his dog tags," Steve Budahn said.
A year earlier, Budahn's partial remains were identified through family DNA. And on Thursday, his casket at long last arrived home.
"He gave the ultimate price," Steve Budahn said.
To a solemn water canon salute and with full Air Force honors, Budahn's flag-draped casket was slowly moved from aboard an arriving Delta flight. As a smattering of relatives stood on the MSP Airport tarmac, it was understandable that their tears flowed with a mix of sadness and joy.
"As you talk more about it, you get choked up about it," Bruce Budahn said. "He gave his ultimate for this country."
Sixty-seven years after he disappeared, a family so touched by tragedy can finally say goodbye.
Budahn is one of 42 airmen recovered from the 1952 crash. He will be laid to rest in his hometown of Arlington on Saturday afternoon.
