Memorial Day 1949: Dutch Della Betta comes home

Young men who had been at war just a few years earlier took the lead on Monday morning, May 30, 1949, as the color guard from Carl L. Caviness American Legion Post No. 102 led the traditional Memorial Day procession from courthouse square to the Chariton Cemetery.

There was a band --- the American Legion Junior Band --- to perform "America the Beautiful," "America" and "The Star Spangled Banner." Oscar Stafford was marshal of the day and a patriotic address was given before a crowd of several hundred by William Dullard, the Legion's fifth district commander.

Armfuls of fresh flowers had been cut from gardens across the city on Sunday evening and early Monday and Legionnaires, assisted by Boy Scouts, carried out the decades old tradition of placing a bouquet on the grave of each military veteran buried there.

But the graves of comrades who had died during World War II were few and far between --- the process of repatriation from temporary resting places around the globe had just begun the previous year.

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Later that day, shortly after noon, many of those who had been at the cemetery Monday morning gathered again --- this time at Sacred Heart Church --- to pay tribute to U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Prosdocimo J. "Dutch" Della Betta, whose remains had arrived in Chariton by train on Thursday evening, May 26, then were escorted to Dunshee Funeral Home at the intersection of North Grand Street and Auburn Avenue.

Dutch, age 24 when killed five years earlier on March 15, 1944, was a son of Olivo Michele “Mike” and Maria Angela “Mary” Della Betta. He was born Oct. 15, 1919, in Hocking, a Monroe County mining town, but moved as a child with his family to Chariton when his father went to work in the Lucas County mines. He had a younger sister, Aurora, and a younger brother, Quinto "Leo" Della Betta.

A 1938 graduate of Chariton High School, Dutch then moved to St. Louis and was living and working there when he entered the U.S. Army Air Corps on Feb. 5, 1943. He married Dora DiBacco on Sept. 2, 1943, and was deployed to England --- trained as a flight radio operator --- during January of 1944.

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Dutch was a member of a 10-man crew aboard the B-24 Liberator Pocatello Chief when it took off on Wednesday morning, March 15, 1944, from Royal Air Force Station Wendling, Norfolk, with other B-24's of the 576th Bomb Squadron, 392nd Bomb Group, for a mission over Brunswick, Germany.

The mission was a success, but the Pocatello Chief ran into trouble as the planes turned for the return flight to England. She was observed from other bombers in the squadron as Pilot Bert D. Miller peeled off after the run with bomb bay doors open, then fell behind and was lost to sight about 11:30 a.m. The plane appeared to be in control and no parachutes were sighted but it was not heard from again.

Working with German records after the war, investigators concluded that the Pocatello Chief had been damaged by flak, then attacked by German fighter pilots after it fell behind. A mid-air explosion resulted and the plane crashed near Hiddinghausen, killing all 10 aboard.

They were, in addition to Dutch, 1st Lt. Bert D. Miller, 22, Abilene, Texas, pilot; 2nd Lt. William E. Wilson, Santa Rosa, California, co-pilot; 2nd Lt. Charles R. Williamson Jr., 28, Encinitas, California, navigator; 2nd Lt. Gabriel Wishbow, 26, Lawrence, New York, bombardier; Staff Sgt. James M. Lynch, 24, Sioux Falls, S.D., gunner; Staff Sgt. Henry T. Mayer, 21, Bellmore, New York, gunner; Staff Sgt. Thomas L. Rice, 19, Meridian, Miss., gunner; Staff Sgt. Truman F. Roberts, 21, Batesville, Arkansas, gunner; and Staff Sgt. Gerard P. Lemily, 25, Brooklyn, New York, gunner.

The remains were recovered by German forces, identified by dog tags and buried on March 21 in 10 adjacent graves in a cemetery for prisoners of war at Dortmund, where they remained until after the war ended.

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Back home, Dutch's widow and parents were informed on April 1, 1944, that he was missing in action. During August, operating with information provided by Germany via the International Red Cross, his death was confirmed.

Once World War II had ended, U.S. forces recovered the remains of the 10 Pocatello Chief crewmen buried in Germany and transported them to Belgium. Their families were offered options --- repatriation to the United States or permanent burial in an American cemetery in Europe.

The families of five, including the Della Bettas, asked that the remains of their loved ones be returned to the United States. The other five were buried, and remain, in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium.

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When Dutch's remains arrived in Chariton by train on Thursday evening, May 26, they were accompanied by Tech Sgt. Charles Stegeman. So he, along with a Legion honor guard and hundreds of others, filled Sacred Heart Church on the afternoon of Memorial Day, 1949, for the funeral Mass, celebrated by the Rev. Charles O'Connor.

After the funeral, the casket was placed in the Dunshee Funeral Home hearse for the final leg of Dutch's long journey --- down U.S. 34 to St. Mary's Cemetery on the west edge of Albia where Mike and Mary had buried two other children before they moved to Lucas County.

At graveside, the Rev. T.J. Bloom, American Legion chaplain, conducted committal rites and Sgt. Stegeman presented the flag that had covered her son's coffin to Mary Della Betta. Dutch was home, at last.

As the years passed, others in his family joined Dutch at St. Mary's Cemetery. Mike and Mary continued to live in Chariton until their deaths, respectively, in 1979 and 1989. Both Aurora (Simmons) and Quinto died during 2008 in other states and their remains were returned to Iowa for burial at St. Mary's, too, completing the family circle broken nearly 70 years earlier when Dutch fell from the sky over Germany.