Black Tuesday: The disappearance of Capt. Ara Mooradian

The story of Capt. Ara Mooradian begins on Nov. 11, 1924, in Fresno, California. The son of Nishan and Annie Mooradian, he grew up in a small but loving Armenian household in Sanger, California, alongside his six siblings. From an early age, he was known for his warmth, intelligence, kindness and willingness to help others. Everyone who knew him remembered his bright smile and the genuine goodness he showed to those around him. Few could have imagined that the story of the young boy raised in California's Armenian community would one day end thousands of miles away in the waters off North Korea. Ara Mooradian attended Sanger High School, where he stood out as a brilliant student eager to learn, before continuing his studies at Fresno State College. Eventually, he chose to join the U.S. Air Force and began a demanding period of military training across the United States. He attended radio school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, cadet aircrew training in Sioux City, Iowa, bombardier preflight training in Santa Ana, California and advanced bombardier and dead-reckoning navigation training in Victorville, California. Mooradian had found his calling in aviation, preparing for a military career that would soon place him at the center of a major international conflict. That conflict arrived with the outbreak of the Korean War, fought between North and South Korea and their respective allies. Backed primarily by China and the Soviet Union, North Korea faced a United Nations coalition led by the United States in support of South Korea. The war became one of the first major proxy conflicts of the Cold War and one of its bloodiest, costing the lives of millions of civilians. More than 36,000 Americans were killed during the war, more than 92,000 were wounded and thousands were listed as missing. During this conflict, Mooradian served with the 372nd Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Wing, as a bombardier aboard the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Day after day, he flew a variety of demanding missions, fully aware that every flight over North Korea could be his last. In September 1951, U.S. aerial reconnaissance discovered the construction of 18 new jet-capable North Korean airfields. American commanders decided the sites had to be destroyed before they became operational. On the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 23, 1951, Mooradian’s B-29 Superfortress departed Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, as part of a formation of nine B-29 bombers. Their target was the Namsi Airfield in western North Korea. As the aircraft left the target area, it came under heavy attack from enemy MiG-15 fighters, which inflicted devastating damage on the bomber. The pilot managed to reach the bay before ordering the crew to bail out, but moments later the B-29 crashed into the Yellow Sea approximately seven miles off Chongju on North Korea's northwest coast. The aftermath was tragic. The copilot was rescued by an Australian frigate, while another crew member's body was recovered and identified days later. Five surviving airmen were captured and later returned after the war. The remaining six crewmen, including 26-year-old Capt. Ara Mooradian, vanished without a trace and remain unaccounted for to this day. The mission became part of what is now remembered as "Black Tuesday," one of the darkest days in the history of American bomber aviation during the Korean War. Of the nine B-29s that took part in the operation, only three managed to return to base, marking the highest percentage of U.S. bombers lost in a single mission. Back home in California, Mooradian's youngest sister, Roxy Iknoian, never stopped believing that her brother might one day return. For more than 60 years, she kept a box of his personal belongings carefully wrapped in 1950s newspapers inside a closet, preserving hope long after the war had ended. Decades after the crash, the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs examined testimony from Nikolay D. Kazersky, a 1950-51 inmate in a Soviet labor camp, suggesting that Mooradian may have survived the crash and been transferred to the Soviet Union. However, the evidence was ultimately deemed inconclusive, and the U.S. government has never officially confirmed that he was held as a prisoner of war. Today, Capt. Ara Mooradian is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and his name is inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance in Washington, D.C. In 2004, more than half a century after his disappearance, he was honored during a memorial service with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, including a caisson procession, ceremonial escort, a 21-gun salute and a missing man formation flyover. His sister Roxy had waited a lifetime for that recognition. Mooradian is also commemorated at Ararat Armenian Cemetery in Fresno, where his name and photograph appear on the family headstone beside his parents, ensuring that although his remains lie thousands of miles from home, his memory endures here, where his story began.

Black Tuesday: The disappearance of Capt. Ara Mooradian

This story is FREE for you...

John Dekhane

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This story is FREE for you...

John Dekhane

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Related Articles

U.S. defense firms debut at Azerbaijan arms fair as Ondas’s Israeli ties emerge

A Hairenik book on a Marine Corps bunk

A timeline of biblical translation in Armenia

Interview: Dana Mashoian Walrath on genocide and art