> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Pilot killed in WWII finally laid to rest
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/pilot-killed-in-wwii-finally-laid-to-rest/
- Published: 2003-10-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:07:49.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Man says good-bye to the father he never knew*

More than 58 years after his death, Army 1st Lt. Phillip Miller was buried with full military honors at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica on Friday.

Santa Monica resident David Miller, just 2 years old when the bomber pilot’s plane crashed during World War II, was finally afforded the opportunity to say good-bye to the father he never knew.

On Sept. 8, 1945, just days after the war officially ended, Lt. Miller and seven other Army Air Force servicemen took off from Australia and headed for Biak Island, Indonesia. But the plane, piloted by the 28-year-old Lt. Miller, never made it there. Miller’s family, including his wife, Sarah Burch, were told that the plane was assumed to be lost at sea in the South Pacific Ocean because of bad weather.

Some 56 years later, Burch got a phone call in September of 2001 from Army personnel, who told her that her husband’s plane had been found on top of a mountain in New Guinea.

For more than 50 years, Lt. Miller and his crew had been classified as missing in action. In 1995, a helicopter flying over a 13,000-foot-tall mountain spotted the wreckage. But because civil unrest in Indonesia delayed salvage efforts, U.S. military crews couldn’t reach the area until 1999\. After crews finally retrieved the remains and personal items, DNA from family members enabled Miller to be identified. The entire crew was then flown home in 2000.

For Burch, an 85-year-old widow of three husbands — all of whom were bomber pilots — the burial of her first husband conjured up feelings of grief, sadness and relief.

“It’s a nice feeling on a sad occasion,” said Burch, who lives in Walla Walla, Wash. “I was really shocked because I never knew what happened... My mind kept going over the life we had lived together.”

Lt. Miller’s body was the only one of the eight crew members that was identified. He was honored during a crew funeral in June at Arlington National Cemetery, where the unidentified remains of the soldiers were laid to rest and given a final salute.

The body of Lt. Miller was flown from Honolulu to Los Angeles this week so Miller and his family members could bury him in Santa Monica, where he was first stationed. He flew up and down the coast installing radar equipment.

“In the last two years, I have been developing emotions that I didn’t think I was capable of. It’s kind of an odd feeling,” said the 60-year-old Miller, who works as a tax advisor on Wilshire Boulevard. “It happened so long ago, it didn’t really affect me... at the time I was growing up, it was just a given that children who didn’t have fathers were killed in the war.

“But this has caused some emotions to come up.” As the sun peaked through a solar storm that lingered over the cemetery, Miller sat next to his son, David Miller II, 21, and his mother while Army soldiers, including a firing squad and a lone bugler, gave Lt. Miller a ceremonial burial. Miller’s three sisters — Rose Ross, Mary Lue Hart and Katherine Casseday, all of whom live in Washington — also attended, as well as extended family members.

About 25 people, including a handful of Army uniformed personnel, attended funeral services at First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica on 11th Street, where Chaplain Alan Hendrickson of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment spoke of a man he knew only through stories told to him.

“In some ways, as we celebrate today, he has returned home to Santa Monica, California,” he said, standing in front of the casket covered with a United States flag, and flanked by red and white flowers. “We bury him today and we remember him today. We render military honors to one who has served his country.”

Lt. Miller, who was born in Yuba City, Calif., in 1917, worked for the Oregon State Highway Department as a surveyor in Pendleton, Ore. He met Sarah at church and the two attended Oregon State College. They were married in 1937.

By the time Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese in 1941, Lt. Miller had finished two years of college in civil engineering, but wanted to join the military to fight for his country. Over the protestations of his father, Lt. Miller joined the Army on the promise he wouldn’t become a fighter or bomber pilot. In 1942, he graduated from officer’s training in Illinois, specializing in communications. While he was stationed in Santa Monica, Lt. Miller was sent to Hawaii and received orders to take flight training. He was sent to the Philippines soon after and flew a C-47, flying radio equipment into a captured Japanese airbase. He was on his way to Hawaii from the Philippines in a B- 25H, transporting soldiers, when it was lost.

The region where the plane was found is known to have consistently bad weather — fog and clouds can hover over the mountaintops for weeks. Apparently, treacherous winds took Lt. Miller’s plane and slammed it headlong into the mountainside at full throttle.

Along with the United States flag that was draped over the coffin, the Army on Friday provided Miller with a new set of wings, symbolizing his father’s old ones, which were mangled in the wreckage.

“I guess he slammed into the dashboard,” Miller said, adding the site of the wreckage was gruesome, with remains spread along the rocks of the mountaintop. “The irony of it is he got all the way through the war and got killed by a storm.”

Burch said she had received a letter from Australia by her husband just three days before he died. The correspondence said a new generator had been installed in the plane and that he was on his way to Hawaii.

“I never did hear from him again,” she said, adding that the last time she spoke with him was a few weeks prior, when he was in Hawaii.

In 1946, Burch received a letter from an Army Air Force commanding general that informed her that her husband was assumed dead.

“May your sorrow be in some measure alleviated by the knowledge of the esteem in which your husband was held,” the letter read.

Lt. Miller was regarded as a competent pilot who had earned the reputation for diligence and an earnestness of purpose, according to the letter.

“He will be remembered for his skill as a pilot, love of his country,” Hendrickson said.

“He paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/102503-01_01.jpg)

(Left) United States Army soldiers on Friday carry the remains of Lt. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/102503-01_02.jpg)

(Left) United States Army soldiers on Friday carry the remains of Lt. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/102503-01_04.jpg)

(Above) David Miller holds a picture of his father, Lt. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 25, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/102503.pdf?ref=smdp.com)