JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas --
A 50th anniversary memorial ceremony to remember three Cold War Airmen, killed in 1964 when their plane was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, will be held Feb. 2 in Vogelsberg, Germany. Thanks to support from the Air Force Personnel Center missing persons branch, family members of those lost Airmen will be on hand to help commemorate the date.

On Jan. 28, 1964, Lt. Col. Gerald Hannaford, Capt. Donald Millard and Capt. John Lorraine left Wiesbaden Air Base on a routine T-39 training mission. Approximately 47 minutes into the flight, the pilots - reportedly disoriented by an intense storm and malfunctioning radio systems - veered nearly 100 miles off course into Soviet-controlled airspace. Attempts to alert the pilots were unsuccessful and two Soviet interceptor aircraft shot the T-39 down an hour after takeoff.

"The villagers around Vogelsberg were moved by the incident," said Bernd Schmidt of Weimar, Germany. "Many of them were eyewitnesses to the crash and pieces of the plane were strewn across their village. Sometime after the incident they erected a white cross at the site of the wreckage. The first cross was destroyed but in 1990 the citizens erected an even bigger cross. In 1998 they added a stone memorial. They were determined that the Airmen would not be forgotten."

Every Jan. 28, villagers place flowers at the site to honor the memory of those three Airmen, said Sandra Kolb, AFPC missing persons branch chief. Last year, Kolb got a call from Schmidt asking for her help.

"He wanted our help locating family members of the deceased Airmen so that the Vogelsberg citizens could invite them to the 50th memorial ceremony," she said. "Because all casualty/mortuary benefits and entitlements were completed decades ago and we don't have contact information, locating survivors was not easy."

It took nearly a year but with help from many sources, Kolb's team was able to track down and make contact with a family member for each of the three Airmen.

"I was always interested in the history of WWII, the Cold War and meeting with U.S. veterans because they helped liberate our area," said Schmidt. "Over the years I have accumulated more friends in the U.S. than in Germany. I was delighted when I heard that in the summer of 1964 an East German farmer in Erfurt, at great risk to himself, contacted some American Airmen headquartered in West Berlin and returned a ring belonging to one of the fallen Airmen."

That ring, belonging to Lorraine, was returned to his widow at Langley Air Force Base, Va., in 1966.

Schmidt got involved in the project to find the Erfurt crash victims' family members about a year ago when his friends showed him a newspaper clipping about plans for the memorial ceremony and asked for his help.

"I was searching for almost a year, so when I was put in contact with Sandy, I felt very hopeful. She helped us contact the families and all agreed to come," Schmidt said. "We have had warm correspondence from all three families. Many family members have sent us information and pictures to include in our local exhibit honoring the Airmen. Americans liberated us from Hitler that is why the fate of the three Airmen will always be in our hearts. Enemies are now friends. We want to come together with the families of these brave Airmen so we can all remember and never forget."

For more information about the missing persons mission and other personnel issues, visit the myPers website at https://mypers.af.mil.