It took John Howard about five years to identify his brother.

Howard had a group photo of the men from the Army Air Corps' Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, 11th Bombardier Group. And he knew his older brother was in the picture, taken at Hickam Air Field before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But it took years - along with a magnifying glass and a yellowing portrait - before Howard could identify which man in uniform was George Franklin Howard.

"I really didn't know him," said Howard, who was 3 when his brother died four months shy of his 21st birthday in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

His family never talked much about George, just that he was lost in the war.

"He had a photographic memory they said," said Howard of the honor student who joined the military after graduation. "He was just a happy-go-lucky fellow."

The photograph was part of a booklet about Hickam created by the Air Corps. It returned home with George's personal effects.

"They sent this back with his things," said Howard, who had the addresses for a man from Swansboro and one from Hubert who had also been at Hickam at that time. But Howard never contacted them.

Instead the retired Marine Corps 1st sergeant and his daughter went row by row, comparing faces in the photograph until they found the one that matched. Now he's hoping to connect with others who were there and might be interested in seeing the booklet. The deepest hope is that he will come across someone who remembers George.

"I don't know. I'd just like to meet some of them," said Howard, noting that the 11th Bomb Group took heavy casualties during the infamous attack. "Most of these here, probably, in this picture here, a lot of them didn't make it; and those that did would be in their 80s now.

Howard, a Hubert resident, plans to attend the next meeting of the ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) Club in Morehead City. The informal club is comprised of about 150 World War II veterans who meet every other month for lunch and to swap "sea stories." Howard will take the booklet with him.

"They may want to see this," said Howard, who was one of six of the 11 Howard children to enlist in the military.

George was the third oldest son but the first to join. Three of the other Howard boys went into the Army; one went into the Coast Guard; and John Howard, the youngest boy, enlisted in the Marine Corps. The oldest daughter joined the Army Medical Corps.

"It's just something our family started, and it's continued," said Howard of the military tradition that continues with his son and a nephew currently in the Air Force and a great nephew who served in the Army.

The four of his brothers who served in the European Theater during World War II returned home safely - George was the only who died in service.

"My brothers, they never talked much about the war," said Howard.

Neither does he.

"I don't like to discuss it," said Howard, who has a Purple Heart from his service in Vietnam. "You lose too many friends. Personal things happened to you and your friends. You kind of keep it inside."