Air Force 1st Lt. Raymond Plevyak always wanted to fly.
As a 10- or 11-year-old, he would look longingly to the sky when a plane buzzed overhead and offer a prediction, said his sister Helen Mongelia of Carbondale.
“‘I’m going to fly one of those things one of these days,’” Mongelia recalled him saying. “And he did.”
On March 1, 1952, Plevyak, 22, took off in his F-51D Mustang fighter-bomber on a combat mission over North Korea and never returned. He is one of 7,751 American armed forces personnel still missing or unaccounted for from the Korean War.
The Plevyak family had quite a military tradition, Mongelia said. Raymond was the second youngest of 11 children and about 10 years younger than Helen. A photo depicts all of them together: a smiling Raymond clad in a suit and tie — too young for military service — standing next to Helen. Two other brothers are dressed in Navy uniforms. In all, six of them served in uniform, including a sister, Ann, a Navy nurse, Mongelia said.
Plevyak wasted no time enlisting after graduating from Fell Township High School. He promptly went into the Air Force and began fulfilling his childhood ambitions. He trained at Sampson Air Force Base in New York before attending pilot training school at Craig Air Force Base in Alabama. He often sent letters home, Mongelia said. At first, he wrote the training was a bit harder than he imagined. Eventually, the letter expressed confidence and pride in learning to become a pilot.
“He just loved it,” Mongelia said, adding he hoped to make a career of military aviation.
In June 1951, Plevyak earned his wings. Family members, Mongelia included, traveled south to see him graduate flight school.
“We were all proud of him,” she said.
He deployed to Korea shortly thereafter.
The letters slowed. Flight time and the call of duty probably afforded precious little time to write. Her brother completed 50 missions, she said.
On March 1, 1952, Plevyak flew his 51st and final sortie.
Mongelia has an excerpt of a book about Plevyak’s unit that offers some details of what happened. He and other pilots flew their planes on a mission to attack and cut enemy rail lines. Plevyak had completed his attack run, expending the plane’s bombs and rockets, but lost contact with the others on the way back to a rally point. His plane took a direct hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and crashed, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission, which Congress established in 1923 to commemorate U.S. armed forces service, achievements and sacrifice.
The family received word the next day that he was missing. Mongelia was at her parents’ Whites Crossing home with her husband and other family members while her parents attended a special Sunday church service for the armed forces when the telegram arrived.
Her mother and father knew something was wrong as soon as they returned; her husband told them Plevyak was missing.
“Mother, like all mothers do, started to cry and my dad just couldn’t say much,” she said. “That was our Sunday.”
Others locally received similar telegrams.
Of the about 7,750 Americans still missing from the Korean War, 560 are Pennsylvanians, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
, the federal organization tasked with identifying and recovering missing servicemen.
Among those, Plevyak and 10 others are from Lackawanna County — Cpl. Frank Wancoski, Cpl. John Birochak, Sgt. Thomas McCutcheon Johnson, Cpl. Robert Marion, Sgt. Albert Eppley, Cpl. John Maroni, Cpl. John Langwiser, Sgt. Wilbert Simms and Sgt. Robert Weaver, all Army soldiers, and Air Force Cpl. Robert Domaleski.
Locally, some of those names are etched in granite on the Lackawanna County Korean War Memorial in Dunmore, with the names of other Lackawanna County Korean War deceased.
More than 4,800 miles west, the names of the local missing are engraved in limestone at the Courts of the Missing in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, with 28,000 other missing servicemen from Korea, the Vietnam War and those who served in the South Pacific during World War II, said Tim Nosal
, chief of external affairs at the American Battle Monuments Commission
. Of those, about 8,200 were missing from the Korean War. To date, about 420 of the 8,200 have been identified and recovered by the Department of Defense, Nosal said. Bronze rosettes are placed next to their names to denote the bodies have been found, Nosal said.
However, there is no rosette beside Plevyak’s name, or the 10 other local missing servicemen.
The military eventually presumed Plevyak and the others dead. The family often inquired about efforts to locate Plevyak and received the same response — “they’re looking and checking” but little more, Mongelia said.
Years later, Mongelia had blood drawn to provide DNA for testing on remains found in Korea. Never having Plevyak’s body located and returned home still haunts the family, Mongelia said.
“It does to the point you don’t know what happened,” she said.
A Memorial Day ceremony to honor the military personnel interred at the cemetery in Honolulu and the missing memorialized there is scheduled for today
. Just last week, Mongelia’s daughter and son-in-law, Patricia and John Munley, traveled to South Korea for a weeklong event for family members that included ceremonies for Americans killed in the Korean War.
While the pain of not knowing still lingers more than six decades later, Mongelia said it is satisfying that those who gave the ultimate sacrifice there, including her brother, are remembered.
“The fact they’re honoring him, with my daughter and my son-in-law there, I’m proud of it,” Mongelia said.
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U.S. SERVICEMEN MISSING
IN ACTION/NOT RECOVERED
World War II: U.S., 73,119; Pennsylvania, 4,752
Korea: U.S., 7,751; Pennsylvania, 560
Vietnam: U.S., 1,611; Pennsylvania, 90
Cold War: U.S., 126; Pennsylvania, 15
— DEFENSE POW/MIA ACCOUNTING AGENCY
THE KOREAN WAR:
JUNE 25, 1950
TO JULY 27, 1953
Total U.S. Service members (worldwide): 5,720,000
Total serving (in theater): 1,789,000
Battle deaths: 33,739
Other deaths (in theater): 2,835
Other deaths in service (non-theater): 17,672
Non-mortal woundings: 103,284
Living veterans: 2,275,000
— U.S. DEPT. OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Local Korean War MIAs
1st. Lt. Raymond Plevyak, Air Force, Carbondale: Plevyak was the pilot of a F-51D Mustang night fighter with the 67th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 18th Fighter Bomber Group. On March 1, 1952, while on a combat mission with three other aircraft, his plane crashed after a direct hit by anti-aircraft fire. He was listed as missing in action and was presumed dead on Dec. 31, 1953.
Cpl. Frank Wancoski, Army, Dunmore: Wancoski was a member of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was taken as a prisoner of war while fighting near Chochiwon, South Korea, on July 12, 1950, and forced to march to North Korea on the “Tiger Death March.” He died while a prisoner at Hanjang-ni, North Korea, on Jan. 31, 1951. His remains were never recovered.
Cpl. John Birochak, Army, Old Forge: Birochak was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting in North Korea on Dec. 3, 1950. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Cpl. Robert Domaleski, Air Force, Scranton: Domaleski was a crew member of a B-29A Superfortress Bomber with the 93rd Bomber Squadron, 19th Bomber Wing. On March 29, 1951, while on a combat mission, his aircraft lost two engines over the East China Sea, northwest of Okinawa. He was listed as missing in action and presumed dead Dec. 18, 1951.
Sgt. Thomas McCutcheon Johnson, Army, Old Forge: Johnson was a member of the Heavy Tank Company, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. When one of his tank’s tracks was blown off in South Korea, he left his tank to get assistance; he was listed as missing in action April 25, 1951. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Cpl. Robert Marion, Army, Scranton: Marion was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting near Taejon, South Korea, on July 20, 1950. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Sgt. Albert Eppley, Army, Scranton: Eppley was a member of Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting near Kunu-ri, North Korea, on Nov. 30, 1950. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Cpl. John Maroni, Army, Scranton: Maroni was a member of Battery C, 99th Field Artillery Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting near Unsan, North Korea, on Nov. 2, 1950. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Cpl. John Langwiser, Army: Langwiser was a member of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting the enemy in North Korea on July 7, 1953. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Sgt. Wilbert Simms, Army: Simms was a member of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting in North Korea on Nov. 27, 1950. He was presumed dead Dec. 31, 1953.
Sgt. Robert Weaver, Army: Weaver was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was listed as missing in action while fighting in North Korea on March 25, 1953. He was presumed dead on March 26, 1954.
— American Battle Monuments Commission
