When someone posts that there were colored Confederates (Black) soldiers serving in the ranks of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and goes into great detail to give several sources which confirm that a particular soldier was a free black man and not the servant of an officer, why does some Idiot (my apologies to real idiots) almost instantly begin to reply to the poster that his information is false and that no black men served as Confederate Soldiers in the rank and file?

I would also request some guidance from those that read this site. I had a cousin who served in the Army Air Force during WWII (prior to being renamed the Unites States Air Force) whose plane was shot down by Japanese antiaircraft fire either from shore batteries or from Japanese ships.

My Cousin, Cecil Vandiver's parents was informed by telegraph that "Your Son, Cecil Vandiver's Aircraft was shot down by enemy antiaircraft fire and is missing in action." This the only information that they every received concerning their son's status as "Missing in Action".

About 10 years ago I was doing research on the Holman/Vandiver Genealogy on the internet and was in the National Archives and decided to enter Cecil's name in the hope that I would glean some information on Cecil's aircraft's fate.

Behold !! "A Missing Aircraft Report" appeared on the scree and when I opened the link I found that an aircraft participating in the same bombing mission as Cecil's plane observed the crash of the Aircraft on which Cecil was a radio-gunner. The Missing Aircraft Report gave the longitude and latitude of the crash site.

My brother George (since deceased) was much more intelligent than I and he calculated the exact position of the crash site and made a drawing of the earth showing various small islands as well as the part of the Aleutian Island chain on which Cecil's aircraft's home base was located.

My question is this. There were eight crewman about this ill fated aircraft which was shot down about six weeks before WWII ended with the defeat of Japan. In the missing aircraft report was the name of the next of kin as well as the home address of all of the crew's next of kin. I toyed with the idea of mailing my data to each of the next of kin at their address in 1945.

I am sure most (if not all) of the next of kin of these crew members are deceased or have moved from the address at which their resided in 1945. Cecil's parents have been dead for many years, but I know that they would have liked to have known where Cecil's death occurred.

I feel that none of the next of kin of these eight airmen were notified that their kinsmen we shot down about 112 miles from their base and send a map of their crash site. I think that my trying to mail this information to their next of kin would be a fatal effort.

Please express your opinion.