Jesse R. Battenfeld Jr.

After 63 years, the remains of Navy flight surgeon Jesse R. Battenfeld Jr. are returning home.

The journey began Feb. 15, 1945, when Battenfeld, who has been memorialized as the namesake for an auditorium at the Kansas University Medical Center campus, died in a Navy plane crash in the Cascade Mountains in Washington.

The crash area wasn’t discovered until later that year by a recovery team that buried Battenfeld and the pilot, Ensign Matthew R. McFarland of Cleveland, at the site.

The burial site was forgotten over the years until recently when an amateur historian sparked new interest in the case.

Battenfeld’s remains were retrieved and now will be buried alongside other family members during a full military service at 10 a.m. Saturday at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City, Mo.

“He was a promising doctor,” said Joe Battenfeld, of Boston, whose father was Jesse Jr.’s cousin. “It was a tragedy. I remember hearing about his death from my father,” Battenfeld said. “We had no idea that his body was still buried on that mountain. In the intervening years, the Navy lost track.”

He said Jesse Jr. had already served in the Pacific Theater during the war and “was just finishing out” his service when he died.

He was 29.

Jesse Jr. was the oldest son of Jesse R. Sr. and Margaret Battenfeld of Kansas City, Mo., according to earlier published reports. Their younger son, John Curry Battenfeld, had died in a car accident in 1939 while a KU student, and in his memory they donated funds for KU’s first men’s scholarship hall. Battenfeld Hall opened in 1940.

Jesse Jr. completed his undergraduate work at KU. After his death, the Battenfelds created a memorial fund at the KU School of Medicine. In 1954, the Student Center there opened, and its auditorium is named in his honor.

In 1952, the widowed Margaret Battenfeld married Edward Hashinger, a medical school faculty member. She continued her donations to KU, and in 1962 a new residence hall on Daisy Hill was named in her honor.