COLUMBUS, Ohio — Staff Sergeant Robert Haverty was determined to make it home for the holidays.
“He had it in his head that he could fly enough sorties to get home for Christmas,” said his nephew, Rick Haverty.
The 19-year-old U.S. Army soldier was a nose gunner on a B-24 Liberator that vanished while flying a mission during World War II.
“I can’t tell you how many times I watched my father watch a television show about prisoners of war that were released or something and looking for his brother’s face,” said his nephew, Don Haverty.
Robert’s plane was one of hundreds that took off from Tortorella Field in Italy to fly a bombing mission on Dec. 9, 1944. The troops were recalled about an hour into the flight because of bad weather. Robert’s plane was the only one that didn’t return.
“We don’t know if they ever got the call that the mission was closed,” Rick said. “All we know is that they went missing.”
Records show that the plane was last seen flying over the Adriatic Sea, leading Army officials to believe it crashed and sank to the bottom of the ocean. The 10 soldiers on board were presumed dead, but Robert stayed alive in his family through a diary he kept during the war.
“My father read his diary every Christmas season, it was tradition, like setting up the Christmas tree,” Don said.
Robert’s parents and siblings searched for their missing soldier for the rest of their lives, but never got answers. That search was passed on to his niece and nephews, and as the decades passed, their mission never changed: Bring Uncle Bobby home.
“This has filled our hearts from my earliest memories,” said Robert’s niece, Meg DeWerth.
What they didn’t know was that someone thousands of miles away was working to bring him home, too.
High in the mountains of Croatia, amateur aviation historian Antun Burđelez began to search for clues about a military plane that crashed nearly 80 years ago. Burđelez spoke with a first-hand witness who said nearby villagers heard the plane hit the mountains right before a big storm. They completed the treacherous three-hour hike and found the smoldering remains of the plane and bombs, as well as the bodies of the crew.
“They told me no one ever came to the location. There was no investigation. The bodies were never buried,” Burđelez said. “I told them, we have to do something about it.”
Burđelez made the long and difficult trip into the mountains to the site. There, he found small aluminum fragments from a plane with production stamps on them.
“I was hooked,” he said.
Burđelez immediately researched the plane and discovered that it was an American B-24 Liberator. He told a friend about his discovery, who then shared that his father recovered a bracelet from the crash site. The friend sent Burđelez pictures of the bracelet, and he discovered that it belonged to a soldier who was missing in action.
That missing soldier was part of the same crew Robert took his last flight with.
"Those are my boys,” Burđelez said. “I am connected to them, even though I am not family. From the first day when I discovered who it was, they became my boys.”
Burđelez reported his findings to the U.S. Embassy and continued to take trips to the crash site. About a year after his first discovery, he was at the crash site again when he saw something shining in the rocks. It was a dog tag, and it belonged to another missing soldier from Robert's flight, an Ohio native named Warren Lowe. The next time he visited, he found bone fragments.
Those discoveries would put an end to the mystery of what happened to Robert and start the process of bringing him home.
In 2021, Don went out for a nice dinner with his wife. When he got home, he opened his mailbox and picked up a letter that would change his family forever.
“I flip it over, and it says, ‘Regarding Staff Sgt. Robert Haverty,’” Don said. “I hit the floor. That’s not something you expect to see.”
That letter held the information that the generations before him had so desperately longed for: The military knew where Robert’s final resting place was.
"I have the answers that my father searched for his whole life. It was a big deal,” Don said.
Over time, the Haverty family learned about Burđelez, his journey to the plane crash and his mission to reunite the missing soldiers with their families in America.
“To answer these questions to families a world away, that’s very special,” Don said. “That is something you don’t find in people every day.”
“Antun really is a hero for us,” DeWerth said.
The letter wasn’t the end of the Haverty family’s search for Uncle Bobby. They connected with the other families who lost soldiers on the doomed flight and lobbied their representatives for increased focus on the crash site. Now, the military is planning to excavate it in 2024.
“It would be great to be able to bring Bobby home. It would be great to give him some sense of peace or some sense of ceremony that he so richly deserves,” Don said. “Whatever that hero's welcome home would be that would be nice. But the answer is huge.”