08/11/2026
Waiting for a homecoming
K-State MIA Project works to recover Kansas’ lost service members
One of the last — but intrinsically bravest — things known about 2nd Lt. Victor Dolecek is that in the face of death over contested
enemy skies, the hero jumped in anyway. A son of the Kansas plains and classmate of the future-U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, the Russell native was only a couple years out of high school when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1942, training as a bombardier. Arriving in Europe in May 1944 alongside his crew on the B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber, Dolecek provided aerial support as Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6 that year. Three other missions in the days after went smoothly, even as the U.S. Army’s Eighth Air Force sustained heavy casualties in the fight for supremacy
over European skies. The fifth mission — a June 21
direct attack on Berlin and the first against German soil — would prove considerably riskier.
As the plane of young but battle-tested airmen approached the
German capital for their bombing run, fiery explosions of thick, black flak engulfed the plane and the other bombers of the wing it led. Flight Officer Robert Branizza later recalled an explosion taking out the plane’s second engine, while the pilot fought to keep the bomber stable. Over enemy lines and amid the intense
aerial strikes, each crew member — equipped with parachutes but no prior training — was faced with a stark choice: a near-certain hard crash into enemy territory, or the faint hope of opening their chutes and gliding to safety. With a final look at Dolecek,
who nodded back in understanding, Branizza opened the plane door, and they jumped into the abyss.
***
Now, a project at Kansas State University is delving into history
and aiming to determine the whereabouts of troops who didn’t return home and were determined missing. Nationally, about 81,000 individuals are listed as Missing in Action, or MIA — a federally-designated formal term for personnel who disappear while involved in a combat operation. Kansas accounts for about 1,200 of the MIA individuals. Heading the K-State MIA Project is D.J. Schaefer, doctoral student in history. As an undergrad student at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was part of a team that
successfully found and recovered a B-29 crew that had disappeared
over Chinese Manchuria. He pursued his master’s in history from
East Carolina University and joined a similar project at that school and was able to track, travel to, and recover a submerged aircraft just off the coast of Saipan in the western Pacific Ocean. When it came time to pursue his doctoral degree, Schaefer found
his next opportunity at Kansas State University; he would have the
chance to head his own chapter of the MIA Project. Schaefer found support for the concept from K-State’s Institute for Military History and Military Affiliated Resource Center, as well as easy access to historic archives such as the Eisenhower and Truman presidential
libraries. Close proximity to resources provided by Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth was also key. Schaefer began recruiting for
help with the project. “When I first got the email from D.J., I thought it sounded fascinating,” said Heidi Brauer, a sophomore
in history from Ellinwood, Kansas. “My great-grandfather was a World War II veteran, and since then, my family has had a strong military background. I knew this work was important,”
Brauer, one of about 15 students who responded to Schaefer’s recruitment, works with the K-State Missing in Action Recovery and
Identification Project regularly. The project has also attracted volunteers from local and veteran communities. John Walker, an Army veteran, listened to Schaefer present about the project at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post and was intrigued. Schaefer soon found him a case to work on involving a separate bomber that had gone down over Berlin. Each case involves dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of research: cross-referencing after-action reports to triangulate potential locations of missing remains, fact-checking items from officers’ reports that may have missed key details, and following up on recovered remains that were never identified, among other research entry points. The research is interdisciplinary. Along with historical materials, students
and volunteers on the project must work with experts and materials in archaeology, geography, forensics, and other related fields.
Schaefer has directed K‑State’s MIA Project to focus first on cases involving K‑Staters, Manhattan and Riley County residents, Fort Riley-stationed soldiers, and Kansans.
***
It took a while for the project workers to learn about what likely
happened to Dolecek after that fateful June 1944 jump.
Branizza, for his part, had survived the jump and been taken as a
prisoner of war. In the POW camps, Branizza reunited with his pilot, who reported that the other seven crew members had been able to evacuate the plane, but he did not know what had happened to them. Reports from the German government, relayed by way of the International Red Cross, shared that the crew had bailed and landed in the countryside northeast of Schwerin, Germany, where they were later captured by local police and N**i forces. Most of the crew were executed nearly immediately, while Dolecek was made to march another kilometer down the road by a local N**i party chief and then murdered. In the couple of years after victory
in Europe and Japan, investigators from the U.S. Army’s Grave
Registration Services and War Crimes Investigation Team were on
the ground around the world, asking questions and recovering remains of thousands of military men who had disappeared in combat. An eyewitness in Germany told investigators in May 1945 that two Americans were buried in the local cemetery.
***
There is reason to suspect the unidentified remains at Plat 1, Row 7, Grave 24 of the Luxembourg cemetery are almost certainly those of Dolecek. “Our benefit today is that we have DNA analysis, and with some effort, we can finally connect the dots and bring closure to a lot of families.” While Schaefer is hopeful for the positive identification of Dolecek, he knows it could be months, or even years, before he can find and contact enough of the MIA crew’s next-of-kin for DNA samples to submit to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Once enough samples are collected, that agency could then process a disinterment request for X-7213, the
soldier who could be Dolecek, and send the remains to the agency’s lab at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha for DNA matching.
“Our duty is to make sure these sacrifices are never forgotten. Not every case will be recoverable, but as long as the physical evidence is there, we can make every attempt to bring some resolution to these stories of sacrifice,” said Schaefer. “Sometimes, we
can even bring them home.”
*This story is excepted from “Waiting for a homecoming,” which ran May 21, 2026, in “K-State Today,” an on-line publication of Kansas State University’s Division of Communications and Marketing. Rafael Garcia is a member of the Riley County Historical Society
Board, and he is a writer for K-State’s News and Communications
Services.
