by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Friday, July 25, 2008 Subscribe to Clynt's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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A special memorial ceremony was held this afternoon at Andersen Air Force Base in honor of the six crew members who were killed aboard the ill-fated B-52 Stratofortress that crashed in the waters off Guam on Monday morning. Family, friends and fellow airmen and officers, filled Hangar One at Andersen Air Force Base this afternoon to pay tribute to the victims of Monday's B52 tragedy.

All six crewmembers on board died after the bomber crashed into the waters off Apra Harbor on the day the island celebrates its liberation from Japan during World War II. The crew members were identified as Maj. Christopher Cooper, Major Brent Williams, Captain Michael Dodson, 1st Lieutenant Joshua Shepherd, 1st Lieutenant Robert Gerren, and Colonel George Martin.

Colonel Martin's wife, Ursula, thanked everyone involved in the search and rescue efforts saying she knew that everyone did everything they could to find her husband and his crewmates. "My heart goes out to the family members of the Barksdale crew my heart goes out to them for I know they are going through the same thing that we are experiencing. God's will be done," she said.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas Hesterman stated, "Nothing can fully describe the feelings when a loss this great occurs the void in our hearts from this loss is tremendous. These were men that despite these very sad times would want us to find sunshine in our current darkness they would want us to learn what we can from this and they would want us to continue to grow to laugh to love to and to live."

For several days a joint rescue and recovery effort by civilians and the military and led by the U-S Coast Guard scoured nearly 3,000 square miles. While only two bodies were recovered DNA testing is being conducted to identify other remains recovered during the search operations.

The Air Force in the meantime has already begun the hard task of putting together what exactly caused the B52 to go down, Andersen Air Force Base 36TH Wing Commander Brigadier General Douglas Owens said, "There's actually two boards that will be convened the first one has already been convened it's a safety investigation board and that is an aviation safety board that helps us internally look at how we do business and things along those lines and the results of that board will be released internally only there's a second board the accident investigation board it's a legal board and those results will be publicly released."

Although General Owens says he can't pin down an expected completion date for the investigation he does confirm that the safety investigation board is already on island.

Meanwhile efforts to recover the remains of the airmen and pieces of the plane will continue for an undetermined amount of time depending on things like the weather and ocean conditions.

The aircrew was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana and was deployed here with the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron as part of the Department of Defense's continuous bomber presence mission in the Pacific.