Press Release | July 30, 2024

Airman Accounted for from WWII (Yeary, H.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Hubert Yeary, killed during World War II, was accounted for June 20, 2024.

In spring 1944, Yeary was assigned to the 732nd Bombardment Squadron, 453rd Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force in the European Theater. On April 8, Yeary, the ball turret gunner onboard a B-24H “Liberator” Little Joe, was killed in action when his plane was shot down by enemy fighter aircraft fire while on a bombing mission to Brunswick, Germany. Airmen aboard other aircraft flying in formation with Little Joe did not report seeing any crewmembers exiting the aircraft before it crashed in the vicinity of Salzwedel. The crash site could not be located by Allied forces during the war, and the remains of all nine crewmembers, including Yeary, were unaccounted for following the war.