Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it.
Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (November 2007)

Image:Charles_C._Carson_Center_for_Mortuary_Affairs.jpg‎

The Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs is a $30 million mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware. The mortuary Affairs is the Department Of Defense's largest joint-service mortuary facility and the only one located in the continental United States.

When the United States entered World War II, the airport that Dover had begun to build was taken over by the War Department. Throughout the war, the Dover Army Air Base provided a training ground for pilots and housed a rocket research facility. Activity was at a minimum from 1946 to 1952 when the US Congress appropriated millions of dollars for improvements. Since 1955, the remains of more than 50,000 service members have arrived at Dover for identification and funeral preparations. The mortuary staff prepares the remains of fallen U.S. service members, as well as government officials and their families stationed abroad in Europe and Southwest Asia.

The mortuary was used in 1978 for the victims of the Jonestown mass murder/suicide, 1986 for identifying the remains of the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger, and in 2003 for the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was also a major site for identifying the remains of military personnel killed in the 9/11 attacks.

The center is named after Charles C. Carson who served as the Dover mortuary director for 26 years. He retired in 1996 and died August 8, 2002.