SALT LAKE CITY — Eighty-one years after he vanished during a mission in World War II, U.S. Navy Ensign Howard A. Holding has finally been laid to rest in his hometown of Salt Lake City, bringing long-awaited closure to generations of his family.
Holding was just 22 years old when his F6F-3 Hellcat fighter plane went down near Yap Island in the western Pacific in September 1944. For decades, his remains were unaccounted for — until researchers traced them to an unknown grave at the American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Honoring a long-lost hero…