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Lost Flights: Families Military report on Nov. 18, 1942 crash of AT-7 on Mount Mendel Glacier Barbara Adams on a childhood memory of her cousin Bill Gamber in his Ohio hometown INTERACTIVE MAP: The Mount Mendel crash, and The Bee's plan to hike to the site

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The goodbyes would be joyous, as they were for cadets Leo Mustonen and Ernest "Glenn" Munn, the other two crew members on the training flight.

In the past three years, the bodies of Mustonen and Munn were found frozen on the glacier. Decades of wondering ended for their families.

But relatives of Gamber and Mortenson remain in limbo. They want to bring their loved ones back home for burial next to their parents and other relatives.

"I thought of him as an older brother," said Dick Christian, 83, a first cousin to Gamber, who piloted the plane.

Peter Stekel, the Seattle backpacker and author who found Munn's body last year, will conduct another search next week at Mendel Glacier. He said he doesn't know whether he will find the other two bodies, but he understands that relatives hope for a call from him.

Moving on

In Fayette, Ohio, where Gamber was born and raised, the announcement of his death in 1942 was a big blow -- the loss of an All-American boy. Relatives say his parents died years later, unable to say goodbye to their son.

Folks in Fayette could only take comfort in the discovery of the wreck and some remains in 1947 in the Sierra.

A hiker found the crash, and searchers retrieved shoes, some frozen flesh and Mortenson's military dog tags. The human remains were buried under a headstone that bears the names of all four airmen in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. Relatives moved on with their lives.

Then Mustonen's body was recovered by an ice climber in 2005, and Munn's body was found by a backpacker in 2007. For Gamber's family, the discoveries reopened old emotional wounds.

After waiting so long, at least one relative tries not to count on anything.

"I have no hopes," said Bay Area resident Barbara Adams, 81, a cousin and childhood friend of Gamber. "Bill and the other person were in the front seats, and I think they are just gone. You'd be dreaming if you thought they would be found."

Other Gamber family members seem more optimistic. Gamber's namesake, nephew Bill Ralston of Cincinnati, waits for news of his uncle.

"We're hoping," said Ralston.

Worth the wait

Unfortunately, the four airmen have been missing so long that many of their closest relatives also have died. Cadet Mortenson has only one close relative left.

Two of Mortenson's three sisters did not marry. Both of the unmarried sisters died before the bodies began emerging from the ice in the Sierra. His third sister, Ruth, died in May, shortly before her 98th birthday.

Mortenson's remaining close relative is niece Carol Benson, 70, a retired teacher in Ogden, Utah.

"I was just 4 years old when it happened," she said in a telephone interview. "I have some letters of his. I hope he is found."

For the family of Munn, whose body was discovered last year, it was worth the wait. Munn's three sisters -- all in their 80s -- attended his funeral in May at the family plot in Colerain, Ohio.

"It meant the world to all three of us," said one sister, Sarah Zeyer, 86, of Adena, Ohio.

"He's beside Mother and Dad," said another sister, Jeanne Pyle, 88, of St. Clairsville, Ohio.

A different life

Gamber's relatives were pleased for Munn's family. The Gamber clan has its own vivid memories of Bill and Fayette before the war.

Adams and Dick Christian -- siblings who were first cousins to Gamber -- said he was bright and handsome, with a knack for music and sports.

In Fayette, Gamber's mother was the phone operator for the entire town, Christian said. Adams said Gamber's father raised hunting dogs.

Christian said Gamber taught him how to play basketball. Later, Gamber played college basketball for a small Indiana school called Tri-State University and earned Little All-America honors, which are given to top college athletes at smaller schools.

"He was four or five years older than I," said Christian, a retired associate dean at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "We lived in Dayton and went to visit them eight or 10 times a year in Fayette."

Evening entertainment at the Gamber household featured the children playing instruments. Gamber played trombone; his sisters played piano and violin, Adams said.

Adams, a retired administrative assistant for Stanford Law School, said she was eight years younger than Gamber. She said the highlight of their visits was taking a spin around Fayette in a cart pulled by a pony. They sold cherries they had picked at Bill's house, she said.

"Life was very different in the 1930s," she said. "Fun for me was just sitting in that cart and going around town."

Adams said Gamber probably had a brilliant future ahead of him. She said he was a fine student and a natural leader. He was the kind of person who people admired.

Said Adams: "Who knows what he would have become."