“He died nine years before I was born,’’ said Harper, of San Andreas, Calif., who said that despite never meeting Ryrholm, he was overwhelmed when the military official listed items recovered from the crash site. “I broke down several times without even knowing it.’’
Now, after enduring decades of wondering what happened, Ryrholm’s family laid his remains to rest at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in his native Arlington beside his mother, father, brother, and sister-in-law.
In addition to a pile of charred and fractured bones, the evidence of Ryrholm’s life fit into a plastic bag: a rusted pocket knife, a worn wristwatch with missing hands, a gold ring, and a tarnished set of pilot’s wings.
The full military burial brings to a close a long journey for the family.
The investigation, which spanned five years and two continents, also brings to light new details about the crash that killed the handsome young pilot, the craft he died flying, and the lengths to which military personnel will go to investigate deaths that occurred in one of the more remote and densely forested parts of the world.
To date, 73,792 service members who fought in World War II are still unaccounted for by the Department of Defense Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office, according to a tally this month. Many of them are in remote regions that are difficult to access.
According to the military report finalized last August, Ryrholm was engaging enemy aircraft before he crashed, but his death was not attributed to incoming fire.
Instead, the report said, investigators believe that one of Ryrholm’s squadmates — following protocol at the time — dropped an empty external fuel tank that struck Ryrholm’s plane.
“After this they changed procedures,’’ said Richard S. Ryrholm, of Sioux Falls, S.D., another nephew and the pilot’s namesake. “So this may have saved future lives.’’
According to a 54-page report by the Hawaii-based military office charged with locating and excavating such crash sites, Ryrholm’s plane was last seen about 900 feet above the canopy and falling, with one of the double-bodied fighter’s two 1,400-horsepower Allison engines already dead and the other giving off smoke.
The crash site was discovered in 2005 and excavated three years later.
Ryrholm’s death was crushing for his parents and the four other children they raised on Overlook Road in Arlington before the war began. All went away to war, but Richard was the only one who did not return.
The Ryrholms remembered the teenager with a broad smile, who had listed “actor’’ as his profession in his application to be a pilot and had inspired curiosity for decades among the family who had little more than photographs of him.
“I always looked at that picture, and I wondered if we would ever find him,’’ said Mary Ryrholm, Richard’s wife. “I just wonder how many girlfriends he had. He was such a good-looking guy.’’
Matt Byrne can be reached at mbyrne.globe@globe.com
