“It’s such an intimate ritual,” said the Redding resident, 74.
William Kubinec was formally buried Friday in a Northern California veterans cemetery.
Kubinec of Garrettsville, Ohio, a fireman second class, served aboard the USS West Virginia. At the time of his death at 21, government records indicate, Kubinec’s remains were unidentifiable and he was buried as an unknown person in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, also known as the Punchbowl.
He was one of about 10 siblings, Svoboda said — her mother, now 96, was the youngest of the family, and just 13 when he died.
Kubinec joined the military as a necessity, Svoboda said, to provide for the family in the last throes of the Great Depression in the late 1930s. His mother, she said, was upset that he wanted to sign up. But he had hemophilia; he would never get in, they thought.
In 2017, Kubinec’s casket was among 35 exhumed that were associated with the West Virginia and sent for DNA testing by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which works to recover and identify unaccounted-for soldiers. Around this time, Svoboda said, the agency reached out to one of her uncles for a cheek-swab DNA sample.
In 2016, the government launched a next-gen DNA testing method for unidentified fallen soldiers from World War II and the Korean War, according to a Department of Defense article in January. The process has become faster and more accurate over time despite the difficulty in identifying older remains.
Kubinec wasn’t formally identified until November 2019, however, and the uncle they’d initially contacted for the DNA sample had died, Svoboda said. It wasn’t until last year that Svoboda’s mother received a letter explaining what they’d found.
“At first she was a little unsettled, but then she realized he could be put to rest,” Svoboda said of her mother’s reaction.
“He was smart, caring, the peacekeeper of the family,” Svoboda said. One year, her mother had told her, the family did not have enough money for a Christmas tree. The day before their school holiday break, Kubinec asked if he could take the tree from the cafeteria so his family could have one, then carried it home.
The military sent dozens of documents to Svoboda about Kubinec’s DNA testing and his service, including his posthumous Purple Heart.
Kubinec, as a fireman, was probably working in the engine room aboard the West Virginia, Svoboda said. During the Pearl Harbor raid, the ship was “hit by two bombs and at least seven torpedoes, which blew huge holes in her port side. Skillful damage control saved her from capsizing, but she quickly sank to the harbor bottom,” according to Navy military history.
Svoboda was told the engineers were crucial in keeping the ship from capsizing by counter-flooding the engine room, essentially sacrificing themselves to save as many shipmates and ships around them as possible.
The Navy offered to place Kubinec in any cemetery of the family’s choosing — back home in Ohio, or even in Arlington National Cemetery. Because her mother is elderly and unable to travel, they chose to bring him to Redding, so she could see the awarding of his military honors.
“The military makes great efforts to bring their fallen home,” Svoboda said.
Several other World War II soldiers who remained unidentified for decades have been returned to family locally in recent years.
U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Dan W. Corson was interred Aug. 7 at Woodside Cemetery in Middletown.
Corson was a Middletown native assigned to the 401st Bombardment Squadron.
He was killed in action Dec. 20, 1942, at the age 27.
The B-17F Flying Fortress Corson was co-piloting was struck by anti-aircraft fire during a bombing raid on a German aircraft factory in France.
A New Madison sailor who died on June 8, 1944, aboard the USS Glennon just off the French coast near Normandy was buried on June 29 at the Green Mound Cemetery in New Madison in Darke County.
Harley Alexander held the rank of Coxswain and served on the Glennon, which was a Gleaves-class destroyer, according to an info sheet provided by the Navy.
The ship had been part of Operation Neptune during the World War II D-Day landings. It had been patrolling for enemy submarines and providing shore fire support. On June 8, 1944, a mine exploded near the back of the ship, causing 16 sailors to be hurled into the water.
Sailors were rescued, but there was some flooding in some ship compartments. The crew was evacuated, leaving some behind to guard. In the morning on June 10, the Germans fired artillery at the ship, and the crew abandoned the ship. It eventually sank in the evening that day.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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