“Time will not dim the glory of their deeds”- General John J. Pershing.
A board of officers was appointed to investigate the crash. All reports on it have been completed and sent to the proper authorities. The entire crew was declared dead the day of the mission and none of the bodies were recovered. Memorial services were held for the deceased on November 24, 1946. According to Capt. Leslie W. Thompson’s letter to Captain Queen’s wife Dorothy J. Queen, a simple but beautiful memorial service was held here on Iwo Jima this past Sunday, our planes dropped wreathes at the spot in the ocean which claimed and never surrendered his body. We could not do any more but we did it with a sadness in our hearts and a prayer on lips that God might give you strength in the darkest hours of your life, may your son grow up to be like the “Jim” we all knew and loved so well. As of currently, all are permanently memorialized at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in the 7th Court.
In an attached letter dated December 4, 1946 from Powell and Powell, attorneys at law, on behalf of Mrs. Mary. M. Edmonds, in the case of her son, the late Corporal Harry L. Edmonds, ASN Ra-34 870 809, who died in Pacific Theatre, has been addressed to Major General Edward F. Witsell-The Adjutant General of the United States Army. Mary Edmonds requested her lawyers to advise General Witsell that her son has about $500.00 in the spring of 1946 and he wrote that he had given the same to his Officer to put away for safe keeping. Then, naturally he had made more money and given the same to his Officer to place with his other money. In either case, his mother would like to know what money is being held for her and when she should receive any effects that her son may have left and also how and when the insurance money will be paid to her.
Memorialized
Harry Edmonds was held by the War Department to have been in a missing status from November 16, 1946 until such absence was terminated on November 30, 1946, when evidence considered sufficient to establish the fact of death was received by the Secretary of War from a Commander in the Middle Pacific Area. Recorded circumstances are attributed to: “Missing in action or lost at sea.” He is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing at the American Battle Monuments Commission.
As part of the Honolulu Memorial in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the ABMC ordered the construction of the Courts of the Missing. The original Courts of the Missing were dedicated to the 18,096 World War II servicemen lost in the Pacific war. On either side of the grand stairs leading to the memorial are eight courts of the missing on which are inscribed the names of the 18,095 American World War II missing from the Pacific.