RON PACKARD, FUHS '54

Army National Guard Chaplain John Lockhart hands the ceremonial flag to Ron and Esperanza Packard after the ceremony for Ray Packard, Ron's uncle.
(Left-click on picture to enlarge it.)

I believe this is about Ron Packard's uncle. Can someone in contact with Ron (class of '54) contact him to verify?
Does anyone know if Ray Packard graduated from FUHS in about 1941 or 1942?

Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Ray Packard was listed as missing in action after being shot down in France in 1944. Last month, he was interred at Arizona's Prescott National Cemetery.

WWII pilot from Orange County makes his last journey home
By Mike Anton November 11, 2008

Two weeks after he left Orange County for World War II, Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Ray Packard took off in his P-38 Lightning fighter on a bombing mission over German-occupied France. It took him 64 years to return home.Packard's plane was among 11 shot down Aug. 25, 1944, when their squadron was overwhelmed in a dogfight with 80 German fighters over Beauvais, a rural area north of Paris. Five of the pilots survived and eluded capture. Two were taken prisoner. The remains of three pilots listed as missing in action were eventually recovered.
The fate of 20-year-old Packard remained a mystery."I was 8 years old when my parents got a call in the middle of the night saying my Uncle Ray was missing," said Ron Packard, 72, a nephew who grew up in Orange County and now lives in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. "It hit my family like a thunderstorm. It weighed on my dad significantly."In August, another phone call from the Army came out of the blue and rekindled those emotions. The remains of Ron Packard's uncle had been found and would be returned to the United States.
The search for Ray Packard began in 1951. An Army team investigating potential grave sites in Europe interviewed a French man who said he found human remains from a P-38 crash near where Packard's plane was last seen. The mayor of the small town of Angy told investigators the remains were buried in a local cemetery and later exhumed. What became of them wasn't known.The case was reopened 55 years later, in 2006, when military investigators went back to Angy to interview a local aircraft wreckage hunter who found human remains in a field. U.S. military officials conducted two excavations and found more remains, aircraft wreckage -- and Ray Packard's dog tags."For families, finally knowing what happened is what's most important," Greer said. "There's still a lot of emotion there even after all these years."In Packard's case, the immediate family that's left to remember him consists of one person: his nephew Ron, a retired Air Force veteran who served three tours of duty in Vietnam.The Army presented Packard with a small box containing his uncle's dog tags. In late October, Ray Packard was interred at Arizona's Prescott National Cemetery in a service that attracted about 100 veterans of all ages who didn't know the man."He was my favorite uncle," said Ron Packard, who opted for Prescott instead of Arlington National Cemetery so he could easily visit. "He always had a smile on his face, and every time he came over to our home, he had some kind of toy for me and my brother."I take comfort in knowing that he's finally home."
Anton is a Times staff writer.
mike.anton@latimes.com

Find the full text of the news article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-airman11-2008nov11,0,3161750.story

· Map shows where Packard was shot down
· http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-111108-me-airman-m,0,6578767.mapimage