1st Lt. Ben Barnes

First Lieutenant Ben Barnes, 23, of Miller, went missing in action during WWII on December 5, 1944.  After seventy-two years, his remains have been located and will return home to Miller.

Full Military Graveside service was held at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, October 15, 2016 at G.A.R. Cemetery, Miller, with Army Chaplin Rev. Joel Higgins officiating.

     In the lobby of the Hand County Courthouse is a WWII memorial listing every man from Hand County that served in the armed forces during the war. A small gold star lies beside the names of those who died while serving. One such gold star is beside Ben Barnes’ name. He was listed as missing in action and presumed dead with his remains never recovered… until this year.

     Ben Butler Barnes, who was born in Miller on January 19, 1921, was the son of Herman D. Barnes and Grace B. Barnes. He graduated from Miller High School in 1939 as the class president. Barnes went on to study at West Point Academy—one of only two South Dakotans accepted to the program that year—and graduated in 1943.  On June 15, 1944, he married Clara Amelia Lumley at the First Presbyterian Church in Miller.

     After graduation from West Point, he was assigned to the United States Army Air Corps where he became a fighter pilot. At some point after completing flight training, Barnes was stationed in South Dakota and would call ahead to his friends in Miller and do flybys of the school as students waved out of the second and third floor windows. The plane was so loud it would knock the clocks off the walls as he flew by.

     Once he was sent overseas to fight in the war, Barnes flew a single seat, fast pursuit plane, the P-51 Mustang, in the 361^st Fighter Squadron, 356^th Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force. Just a few months after going abroad, he was on an escort mission to Berlin when he and nine other American pilots encountered approximately 90 Luftwaffe during the return flight. His plane was last reported over the skies of Eberswalde, Germany on Dec. 5, 1944 and a German military shoot-down report documented a P-51 crash landing near Carlshof that same day. The War Department declared Barnes deceased as of Dec. 6, 1945. Unfortunately, due to political restrictions involving the USSR-occupied zone, American Graves Registration teams were unable to conduct further investigation of the crash site after the war.

     Seventy-two years later, First Lieutenant Ben B. Barnes is being returned home to Miller. This past summer, two Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recovery teams found and excavated the crash site and recovered Barnes’ remains. The plane was identified by the serial numbers on two .50 caliber machine guns found at the crash site. The DPAA identified Barnes’ remains from dental records and mitochondrial DNA match with one of his cousins. Barnes’ funeral service will be held Sat., October 15 at 2 p.m. with full military honors and a fly over at the GAR cemetery in Miller.

     Barnes was posthumously awarded the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and his name, along with those of his fallen comrades, is engraved on the World War II Memorial in Cambridge American Cemetery, in Cambridge, England.

     Men like Ben Barnes, who fought in WWII, saved our country from destruction and tyranny. We look back on WWII and we know the outcome; we won the war. With the passing years, victory has taken on the air of inevitability and we may forget that success did not seem inevitable to the men and women who lived through that war.

     Welcome home Lt. Barnes, thank you for your service, and may you rest in peace.

     Reck Funeral Home of Miller has been entrusted with 1st Lt. Barnes arrangements.