THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507220240
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Fifty-one years after his P-47 crashed as he pursued Japanese planes off West New Guinea, Wynans Ellis Frankfort will be buried this fall beside his parents in Franklin.
Frankfort's fighter plane and his body were discovered in 1991 by a Californian, but Frankfort's family was not notified until last fall.
``My first reaction was complete astonishment,'' said his older brother, Phillip Frankfort, who lives in a Franklin retirement center.
``I was struck dumb,'' said Clifford A. Cutchins III, a close boyhood friend and fellow college student. ``We'd thought it had ended, but the discovery gives it the finality it didn't have before.''
Frankfort's family had been told the plane went down at Biak Island, a Japanese refueling center, on May 27, 1944. The military report said he was ``diving through the clouds'' in pursuit of Japanese planes, Phillip Frankfort said.
He learned last September that the plane crashed upside-down in a jungle and that his brother's remains were in the cockpit.
Wynans Frankfort, who was a slender man with brown hair and blue eyes and was known to most people as Ellis, will be buried Sept. 16 in a civil and military ceremony in Poplar Springs Cemetery.
Cutchins recently funded a scholarship in Frankfort's memory for a Corps of Cadets student at Virginia Tech, and Frankfort's family donated his medals, some personal items and a photo of Frankfort and his plane to the Corps Museum.
The fellowship hall of Franklin's High Street United Methodist Church was named the Ellis Frankfort Fellowship Hall years ago, after the flier was presumed dead.
Cutchins, former board chairman of Sovran Financial Corp., the Norfolk-based bank that became NationsBank after a 1991 merger, said it would be appropriate to perpetuate the name of someone who ``paid the ultimate price.''
Biak Island has about 2,000 residents, and Phillip Frankfort believes natives may have seen the plane earlier. ``But they may have religious scruples about peoples' remains,'' he said, ``so they didn't tear up the site.''
After the discovery by Bruce Fenstermaker in May 1991, a team was dispatched from the Army Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu.
Thorne Helgesen, a civilian identification officer at Hickam, said the remains were taken to the lab, where physical and dental studies helped to identify them.
Helgesen said it is not uncommon for planes or human remains to be found in the South Pacific, especially from World War II air crashes.
He was unable to explain why the family wasn't notified until three years after the body was discovered.
Even as a little boy, Frankfort had a passion for planes.
``He had books about them, everything he could get,'' said his sister-in-law, Rae. ``He had a propeller on his bedroom wall.''
Frankfort left Virginia Tech in 1942, during his second year, to join the Army Air Corps.
As a 21-year-old second lieutenant, Frankfort had amassed 400 hours of combat flying time.
Four months before his death, his plane had been hit by Japanese fire while participating in what his commanding officer, Maj. William M. Banks, described as ``potentially the most hazardous mission ever undertaken by P-47 aircraft.''
It was a volunteer mission to provide cover for a Navy plane over territory ``infested with enemy planes,'' according to Corps Review, a publication of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Alumni.
The information, based on Army documents, said the Navy plane had rescued 10 downed pilots while the P-47 pilots fended off enemy aircraft and drew ground fire.
Frankfort, who was attached to the 342nd Fighter Squadron of the 348th Fighter Group stationed in New Guinea, was awarded the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Distinguished Flying Cross and Silver Star.
He also was awarded the Purple Heart for action in October 1943 in a small clearing near the Fly River, Japanese-held territory. His plane ran out of fuel as he returned to base after providing cover for eight B-25 bombers.
According to Frankfort's account, he bailed out at 1,200 feet and landed atop a 150-foot tree. He broke a rib and suffered bruises when he fell trying to get to the ground.
After spending two days wandering through the jungle, he was rescued when he entered a village. Friendly natives spent the next four days ferrying him down a river to a plantation housing American forces.
Cutchins recalled how he and Frankfort played on the same football team at Franklin High School: ``I was right guard, he was left. In 1939, we were undefeated.''
They went together to the Rose Bowl Game in Durham in 1941, Cutchins said, ``dated a couple of North Carolina girls, took 'em to the game, then up to Franklin for a dance.''
Frankfort's father, Harry, a lumber salesman for Union Camp Corp., took the boys to several Duke University football games.
Phillip Frankfort, a retiree who spends a moderate amount of time traveling, also flew P-47s, but with the 9th Air Force in the European Theater.
``That was just a coincidence,'' he said. ``I didn't have any of those exciting adventures.''
If his brother had survived, Phillip Frankfort said, ``I don't know what Ellis would have done when he got out of the Air Corps. He might well have opted for a career in the Air Force.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Associated Press
In this painting, 2nd Lt. Wynans Ellis Frankfort poses in the
cockpit of his plane.
Photo
Phillip Frankfort, brother of WWII pilot
Color drawing of Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and map by John Earle,
Janet Shaughnessy, Staff
by CNB