Researcher seeks to return dog tag to family of Ellerbe WWII veteran

May 19—ELLERBE — Iain Walker of Niskayuna, New York, needs the Richmond County community's help returning a long lost dog tag to the family of an Ellerbe man.

Walker is the grandson of a World War Two Royal Air Force wireless radio operator. In 1941, his grandfather's aircraft was shot down over Germany and was the sole surviving member of the crew. When he passed away in 2006, Walker received a personal war journal highlighting his military exploits, including the crash.

A passion for history and militaria was ignited. Walker traveled to Germany in 2019, locating the crash site of the downed bomber, and in turn developed relationships that would fuel a project spanning the globe.

Walker met Uwe Benkel, a German national that hunts downed aircraft. Benkel runs The Research Group of the Missing. The organization has uncovered 150 missing aircraft and 50 missing service members over the course of 35 years.

Benkel mentioned to Walker that repatriating lost items to the United States is extremely difficult from Germany. Walker posited the idea of acting as an American liaison to Benkel, researching and facilitating the process of bringing lost gear and mementos back from Europe.

In 2020, Walker established Get It Home United, returning a set of dog tags to Peter Magliocco, a cold warrior, once stationed in Germany and now living in Las Vegas. From there, it was off to the races for Walker.

Since June 2020, Walker and his organization have completed 93 projects, with 40 currently underway. According to Walker, he has an incredible success rate of return. "There are literally only two projects so far where I have been given a name and service number that we have not been able to complete," he extolled.

A tremendous amount of research goes to returning a lost piece of military memorabilia. Walker has become an amateur genealogist. He uses the Veteran's Administration, the National Archives, ancestry platforms, and local social media to build a narrative in order to return artifacts to service members and their families.

Recently, Manfred Vobelt, a metal detector enthusiast, found a single dog tag in Dechsendorf Germany, a district within the city of Erlangen, 100 miles north of Munich. During World War Two prisoners of war were sent to Erlangen to man the armament factories needed to supply the German war machine.

Vobelt contacted Benkel who in turn spread the word to Walker in the states. A solitary dog tag with the name Eligah McLaughlin had been unearthed.

Walker immediately went to work, scouring his resources and cross referencing social security numbers.

Evidence pointed to the conclusion that Eligah McLaughlin was born in Ellerbe, North Carolina. Despite encountering a series of confusing variables, alternate name spellings, and birth date discrepancies, a source at the Veterans Administration ultimately ensured Walker that McLaughlin was indeed, from Ellerbe.

A selective service document referred to as DSS Form One indicated the McLaughlin was born in 1925. Furthermore, Form One delineated a point of contact, Henry McLaughlin, believed to have been Eligah's father.

Hot on the trail, Walker used several common ancestral websites to build out the McLaughlin family tree. He determined that Henry, Eligah's father, lived from 1888-1962, and Jahzel, Eligah's mother, from 1890-1943.

Further research served to elucidate several potential siblings, including Catherine, Henry, Thomas, Emanuel, Ahavia, Celester, and Morris. These names were collated from six different family trees and national census records. The last known piece of public information regarding Eligah is his death. He passed away in 1981 in Arlington, Virginia.

Unfortunately for Walker, the search for Eligah McLaughlin's family ran cold, but Walker, a man on a mission, is intent on returning the dog tag to a family member.

"It's extremely rewarding to find that connection and get it home after a period of 60, 70, 80 years, its just a great feeling," Walker said."Best case scenario for me is when I get to talk to those family members, learn a little bit about the person, hopefully obtain a picture to put a face to a name."

Walker's valiant efforts now rely on the people of Richmond County.

If anyone has information about that may be pertinent to this quest, reach out to Iain Walker at https://www.facebook.com/GETITHOMEUNITED, or [email protected], or Matt Lamb at the Richmond County Daily Journal.

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