By Staff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Following 80 years missing in action, Chinese American veteran Yuen Hop has been accounted for and was laid to rest with full military honors at California’s Golden Gate National Cemetery on Feb. 7.

Born on July 1, 1924, Hop would have been 100 years old today. He was officially accounted for on June 18, 2024, and his family received their full briefing on his identification this past autumn.

Hop served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Force. On Dec. 29, 1944, Hop was serving as a waist gunner on a B-17G “Flying Fortress” on a bombing mission over Bingen, Germany. The craft was struck by heavy anti-aircraft fire, and went down. All crew members bailed out of the aircraft, but one died and five were captured and held as prisoners of war (POWs) in a German POW camp. However, neither Hop nor two other crew members were among the POWs.

In 1946, the American Graves Registration Command began searching for lost American personnel. It took almost another 70 years for a collaboration between the U.S.’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) and German researchers to recover documents from Germany’s Koblenz archive that contained information about three captured American airmen. The documents indicated that German SS troops captured and killed Hop near the town of Kamp-Bornhofen. He was buried in the town’s local cemetery.

Neither Hop nor his missing crew mates were officially registered as POWs, which is why investigators were unable to find them or information on their whereabouts or fate during or after the war.

Hop has posthumously received several medals, including the Chinese American Veterans of WWII Congressional Gold Medal, the Air Medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, the Prisoner of War Medal, and the Purple Heart.

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