BACK HOME: Remains of WWII Navigator identified and returned to Beaumont

BEAUMONT, Texas (KTRK) — A Beaumont World War II Airman who was missing for decades has finally been laid to rest.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced it identified the remains of Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Frank A. Johnstone.

Johnstone, 20, served as a navigator aboard a B-24 bomber that was shot down during a mission over Austria on February 25, 1945.

Nine of the 12 crew members bailed out, but Johnstone and two others went down with the plane. His remains were never recovered after the war.

Investigators returned to the crash site years later, with excavation teams working in Austria between 2017 and 2024. Scientists ultimately identified Johnstone using dental records and DNA testing.

When Johnstone disappeared, his nephew Gene Riggs was 10 years old. Now, at 90, Gene lives in Katy. He’s proud to say Johnstone was his uncle.

“Seeing his face… he was so young,” Riggs remembers. “It amazes me that they found him.”

Gene’s son, Cory, said he was handed the choice of where to bury Johnstone. It was then that he discovered Johnstone had a burial plot right next to his parents in Beaumont.

“I can only assume that his father more than likely bought that extra plot hoping that he was going to be recovered and be sent home one day,” Cory said.

80 years and one day after Johnstone was killed in action, he was laid to rest with military honors in Forest Lawn Funeral Home & Memorial Park.

“He gave all that he possibly could have given for the very freedoms that we have every single day in this country,” Cory said.