Coming Home begins at the end of the journey. The photo of SSgt Erle P Flanagan's grave marker was provided to his mother by the US Army.

Throughout these four pages you will encounter long intervals between an initial step and the completion. One of these is within the Record of Custodial Transfer.

His remains had been disinterred from the Yokohama Cemetery #1 and restored in Yokohama Mausoleum #2. On 25 August 1948 his remains were moved from the Mausoleum and transported to the American Graves Registration Port Office. They remained there until 17 September 1949 when his journey to Hawaii began, arriving 7 October 1949. Burial in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific did not take place until 1 December 1949.

Beginning with Page 2, the documents are arranged in chronological order. Letters from the Office of the Quartermaster General were first sent to Mrs Doris Oakley Flanagan. She had remarried in 1946 but the War Department was not aware of this when the first letter was sent to her in January 1947. A second letter was sent to her in June 1948.

Mr. Edgar J Flanagan, SSgt Flanagan's father, died in 1946. It was not until June 1949 that correspondence
was sent to SSgt Flanagan's mother, Mrs. Margaret Flanagan, now Legal Next of Kin.

This correspondence is within Pages 2 through 4