Navy Airmen Missing In Action From WW II Are Identified (Davis, Keller, Alford, Hall, Hathaway, Smith, Gyorfi)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of seven U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The are Ensign Leland L. Davis, Jackson, Miss.; Ensign Robert F. Keller, Wichita, Kan.; Seaman 2nd Class Elwin Alford, Bogalusa, La.; Seaman 2nd Class Dee Hall, Syria, Okla.; Aviation Machinist Mate John H. Hathaway, Lafayette, Ind.; Aviation Radioman 2nd Class Robert A. Smith, Glen Dive, Mont.; and Aviation Pilot 3rd Class Albert J. Gyorfi, Wilbur, Wash.; all U.S. Navy.
The group remains of all seven are to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, as are the individually-identified remains of Davis, Alford and Hathaway. Hall has already been buried in Oklahoma, and individual burials for the others are being set by the families.
The seven man crew was aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina which took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor.
They encountered inclement weather near the target, as well as heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held island of Kiska with all seven aboard.
In August 1943, the U.S. retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska Volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked “Seven U.S.N. Airmen” with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a WWII aircraft on the slope of Kiska Volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 where they found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identifications of all seven crewmembers.
Approximately 78,000 servicemembers are unaccounted-for from World War II War. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Missing WWII Airmen Are Identified (Wight, Evans, Hanlon, Rugers)
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel (DPMO) announced today that two of four U.S. Army Air Forces airmen missing in action from World War II have been identified, and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The four are pilot Capt. Douglas R. Wight, Westfield, N.J.; co-pilot 1st Lt. Herbert W. Evans, Rapid City, S.D.; crew chief Cpl. John W. Hanlon, Arnett, Okla.; and radio operator Pfc. Gerald L. Rugers, Jr., Tacoma, Wash. Evans and Rugers were individually identified, while group remains of all four will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C. on Tuesday.
On March 27, 1944, a C-46 crewed by these four airmen departed a base in Kunming, China, on route to Sookerating, India, as part of the massive allied resupply missions over the Himalayan Mountains, referred to as the “Hump.” En route one of the crewmen called out for a bearing, suggesting the aircraft was lost. There was no further communication with the crew. The aircraft never reached its destination, and searches during and following World War II failed to locate the crash site.
Officials from the People’s Republic of China notified the U.S. in early 2001 that the wreckage of an American WWII aircraft had been found on Meiduobai Mountain in a remote area of Tibet. The following year, a joint U.S.-P.R.C. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated the site where they found human remains, aircraft debris and personal items related to the crew.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identifications.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Air Force Sergeants MIA From Vietnam War Are Identified (Hoskins, Cooke, Amesbury)
The Department of Defense POW/ Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified.
They are TSgt. Donald R. Hoskins, Madison, Ind. and SSgt. Calvin C. Cooke, Washington, D.C. A third person from the crew, Maj. Harry A. Amesbury, has been previously identified. The funeral for Cooke will be at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington D.C. on June 20, with full military honors.
On April 26, 1972, Amesbury was piloting a C-130E Hercules to An Loc City, South Vietnam for an emergency resupply mission. Hoskins and Cooke were among those aboard the aircraft when it was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Enemy activity prevented any recovery attempts until three years later in 1975 when a Vietnamese search team recovered artifacts and remains that were later identified as belonging to another crewman.
In 1988, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) confiscated remains from a Vietnamese national in Ho Chi Minh City and returned them to the U.S. custody. The remains were attributed to Cooke by the Vietnamese.
In April 1989, a Vietnamese woman living in Thailand told U.S. interviewers that she witnessed the crash of a C-130 in 1972 near An Loc City. She was a schoolteacher at the time of the incident but moved due to hostilities in the area. She told interviewers that two of her former students found the complete remains of one of the crewmen, a uniform, identification tags and other items they were keeping at one of their homes. The students gave her a bone fragment and information from the identification tag of Amesbury, both of which she turned over to the interviewers.
The S.R.V. repatriated additional remains to the United States in June 1989, and January and November of 1991 that were attributed to Cooke and Amesbury.
In 1992, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed several Vietnamese nationals who claimed to have recovered remains from a C-130 crash site near An Loc. The villagers recalled finding a flight suit and almost the complete skeletal remains of one of the crewmen. One of them led the joint team to the crash site and another turned over several small fragments of bone and an identification tag rubbing for Amesbury.
Another joint team returned to the crash site for excavation in 1993 where they recovered additional remains, personal effects and crew related artifacts.
The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia contacted JPAC officials in 1998 about a woman living in Georgia who had remains and personal artifacts attributed to Amesbury. Those were turned over to JPAC as part of the evidence associated with this case.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identifications.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,805 are from the Vietnam War. Another 841 Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war, with 601 of those from Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Airmen Missing In Action From WWII Are Identified (Paschal, Giugliano, Gullion, Rehmet, Widsteen, King, Lowery, Luckenbach, May, Borofsky, Harm)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of eleven U.S. airmen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Capt. Thomas C. Paschal, El Monte, Calif.; 1st Lt. Frank P. Giugliano, New York, N.Y.; 1st Lt. James P. Gullion, Paris, Tex.; 2d Lt. Leland A. Rehmet, San Antonio, Tex.; 2d Lt. John A. Widsteen, Palo Alto, Calif., SSgt. Richard F. King, Moultrie, Ga.; SSgt. William Lowery, Republic, Penn.; SSgt. Elgin J. Luckenbach, Luckenbach, Tex.; SSgt. Marion B. May, Amarillo, Tex.; Sgt. Marshall P. Borofsky, Chicago, Ill.; Sgt. Walter G. Harm, Philadelphia, Penn.; all U.S. Army Air Forces.
The group remains of the entire crew are to be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC, as are the individual remains of each man with the exception of King, Giugliano and Widsteen, whose families have elected hometown burials.
On April 16, 1944, Paschal and Widsteen were piloting a B-24J Liberator with the other nine men aboard. The aircraft was returning to Nadzab, New Guinea after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The plane was last seen off the coast of the island flying into poor weather.
The loss was investigated following the war and a military board concluded that the aircraft had been lost over water and was unrecoverable.
In early 2001 a team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a native of Papua New Guinea who claimed to have found the aircraft crash and recovered identification media for May and Harm. The team surveyed the site in 2002 and found wreckage that matched Paschal’s B-24J tail number along with human remains. They also took custody of remains previously collected by the villager.
Later that year, two additional JPAC teams excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts. Identification tags were found for Luckenbach, May and Paschal. Other crew-related materials found were consistent with items used by the Army Air Forces around 1944.
Mitochondrial DNA obtained from dental and bone samples was one of the forensic tools used by JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists to identify the airmen.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Airman Lost In 1942 Crash Is Identified (Mustonen)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial.
He is Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen, 22, of Brainard, Minn. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Mustonen was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight which departed Mather Field, Calif., on November 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no results.
In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered the aircraft wreckage. Human remains of three of the crew found at the site were buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.
Several other hikers on Mendel Glacier (adjacent to Darwin Glacier) discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial evidence and personal effects in October 2005. Park rangers from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and a forensic anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) recovered the remains, which were later shipped to the JPAC laboratory in Hawaii.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) also used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools in the process. U.S. Army Casualty and Mortuary officials located and briefed representatives of the families of all four crewmen.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
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Army Soldiers MIA From Vietnam War Are Identified (Barker, Dugan, Dillender, Chubb)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified. They will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Maj. Jack L. Barker, Waycross, Ga.; Capt. John F. Dugan, Roselle, N.J.; Sgt. William E. Dillender, Naples, Fla.; and Pfc. John J. Chubb, Gardena, Calif., all from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Chubb will be buried in Inglewood, Calif. on Feb. 18. Barker, Dugan and Dillender will be buried on April 12 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. D.C.
On March 20, 1971, Maj. Barker and Capt. Dugan were piloting a UH-1H Huey helicopter, with Sgt. Dillender and Pfc. Chubb on board. The aircraft was participating in a troop extraction mission in the Savannakhet Province of Laos. As the helicopter approached the landing zone, it was hit by heavy enemy ground fire. It exploded in the air and there were no survivors. Continued enemy activity in the area prevented any recovery attempts.
A refugee in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand showed an identification tag of Pfc. Chubb and a medallion to a U.S. interviewer in 1986. The medallion was reportedly recovered near the same general location from an F-105 crash site. However, the location and the aircraft type did not correlate with the missing aircraft and soldiers.
Between 1988 and 2001, joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic teams, lead by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and three excavations for these soldiers without positive results. An investigation team surveyed three crash sites in 2002 after interviewing local villagers from the province. The team recovered a fragment of human tooth and some crew-related artifacts from one of the crash sites.
In October and November 2004, another joint investigation team excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related evidence. The wreckage was from a UH-1H helicopter, and the team found insignia worn by members of the 101st Airborne Division.
The remains included nine fragments of teeth which the forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match with detailed information from medical and dental records.
From the Vietnam War, 1,807 Americans are still unaccounted-for with 364 of those from Laos. Another 839 have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia with 208 of those from losses in Laos.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Air Force Officer MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Hamilton)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Colonel Eugene D. Hamilton of Opelika, Ala. Final arrangements for his funeral have not been set.
On January 31, 1966, Hamilton was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam when his F-105D Thunderchief was hit by enemy ground fire over the Ha Tinh province. His mission was part of a larger operation, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, which attacked air defense systems and the flow of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Airborne searches for his crash site that day were unsuccessful. A radio broadcast from Hanoi reported an F-105 had been shot down but did not provide any details.
Between July 1993 and November 2000, joint U.S.-Vietnam teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and one excavation searching for the pilot and his plane.
An investigation team in March 2000 learned from a Vietnamese villager that an area excavated in 1997 was not the location of the pilot’s burial. A second location was then excavated Aug.-Sept. 2000, which did yield aircraft wreckage, personal effects and human remains.
In 2004, three Vietnamese citizens turned over to a JPAC team remains they had found at the same crash site a year earlier.
In late May 2005, the JPAC team recovered fragments of possible human remains and life support equipment from the 2000 crash site. Personal effects found there also included a leather name tag with the name “HAMILTON” partially visible on it.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed his identity.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,807 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,382 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 839 Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end, with 599 from Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
https://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpg00adminhttps://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpgadmin2025-03-30 07:21:562025-03-30 07:21:57Colonel Eugene D. Hamilton
Navy Seaman Missing From Pearl Harbor Attack Is Identified (Hickok)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy seaman, missing in action from the attack on Pearl Harbor, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Seaman Second Class Warren P. Hickok of Kalamazoo, Mich. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Hickok was assigned to the Light Mine Layer USS Sicard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Many crewmembers from the Sicard, including Hickok, were dispatched to assist the crew of the USS Cummings, a Navy destroyer docked nearby. The Cummings succeeded in getting underway and clearing Pearl Harbor, but no casualties were reported aboard that ship. During an investigation to determine who was still unaccounted-for after the attack, it was surmised that Hickok may have been a casualty aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania. Some crewmen from the Sicard had been dispatched to the Pennsylvania during the attack, but there was no record to indicate that Hickok was lost aboard that ship.
In the days following the attack, burial details interred many of the unknown dead in Nuuanu Cemetery on Oahu. Among those buried were an unknown sailor identified only as X-2. Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service oversaw the disinterment of unknown remains, including the X-2 remains. They could not be identified, and were reburied in Section E, Grave 731, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, on June 9, 1949.
In 2004, an avocational historian contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii and suggested that the remains in Grave 731 may be those of Hickok. Based on available records, JPAC exhumed the grave in June 2005. Forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match those remains, including dental remains, with detailed information found in Hickok’s World War II medical and dental records.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
https://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpg00adminhttps://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpgadmin2025-03-30 07:16:002025-03-30 07:17:24Seaman Second Class Warren P. Hickok
Navy Seaman MIA From World War II Is Identified (Hall)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial tomorrow with full military honors.
He is Seaman Second Class Dee Hall, of Syra, Oklahoma. He is to be buried at the Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.
Hall was one of seven crewmen aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina which took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor.
The crew encountered inclement weather near the target, as well as heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held island of Kiska with all seven crewmen on board.
In August 1943, the U.S. retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska Volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked “Seven U.S.N. Airmen” with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a WWII aircraft on the slope of Kiska Volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 where they found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identifications of all seven crewmembers.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II War. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
https://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpg00adminhttps://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpgadmin2025-03-30 07:15:212025-03-30 07:17:24Seaman Second Class Dee Hall
Air Force Sergeant MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Shannon)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon of Owasso, Okla. Funeral arrangements are yet to be set by his family.
Shannon and 18 other servicemen operated a radar installation atop Pha Thi Mountain in Houaphan Province, Laos, approximately 13 miles south of the border with North Vietnam. The site, known at Lima Site 85, directed U.S. bombing missions toward key targets in North Vietnam.
In the early morning of March 11, 1968, the site came under attack by a force of North Vietnamese commandos. The enemy force had scaled the sheer mountainsides in the hours before the attack and overran the site. During the attack, some Americans made their way down to ledges, but survivors reported that several were killed.
Several hours later, U.S. aircraft attacked enemy positions around the site, enabling helicopters to rescue eight of the 19 Americans, though one of the survivors died en route to a base in Thailand. Later that day, and for four additional days, U.S. air strikes bombed the site to destroy technical equipment left behind.
Beginning in 1994, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) began interviewing witnesses in both Laos and Vietnam to gather information on the fates of the Americans. Some of those interviewed were villagers who lived near the site, while others were former enemy soldiers who carried out the attack. In 2002, one of the enemy soldiers stated that he helped throw the bodies of the Americans off the mountain after the attack as they were unable to bury them on the rocky surface.
Between 1994 and 2004, 11 investigations were conducted by both JPAC and unilaterally by Lao and Vietnamese investigators on both sides of the border. During one of the investigations, several mountaineer-qualified JPAC specialists scaled down the cliffs where they recovered remains and personal gear on ledges. JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory scientists used mitochondrial DNA and other forensic techniques to identify the remains as those of Shannon.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,812 are from the Vietnam War. Another 771 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of the Americans identified, 199 are from losses in Laos.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
https://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpg00adminhttps://pow-mia-kia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-300x200.jpgadmin2025-03-30 07:14:472025-03-30 07:17:24Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon
Davis, Keller, Alford, Hall, Hathaway, Smith, Gyorfi
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | May 9, 2006
Navy Airmen Missing In Action From WW II Are Identified (Davis, Keller, Alford, Hall, Hathaway, Smith, Gyorfi)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of seven U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The are Ensign Leland L. Davis, Jackson, Miss.; Ensign Robert F. Keller, Wichita, Kan.; Seaman 2nd Class Elwin Alford, Bogalusa, La.; Seaman 2nd Class Dee Hall, Syria, Okla.; Aviation Machinist Mate John H. Hathaway, Lafayette, Ind.; Aviation Radioman 2nd Class Robert A. Smith, Glen Dive, Mont.; and Aviation Pilot 3rd Class Albert J. Gyorfi, Wilbur, Wash.; all U.S. Navy.
The group remains of all seven are to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, as are the individually-identified remains of Davis, Alford and Hathaway. Hall has already been buried in Oklahoma, and individual burials for the others are being set by the families.
The seven man crew was aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina which took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor.
They encountered inclement weather near the target, as well as heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held island of Kiska with all seven aboard.
In August 1943, the U.S. retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska Volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked “Seven U.S.N. Airmen” with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a WWII aircraft on the slope of Kiska Volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 where they found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identifications of all seven crewmembers.
Approximately 78,000 servicemembers are unaccounted-for from World War II War. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Wight, Evans, Hanlon, Rugers
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | May 8, 2006
Missing WWII Airmen Are Identified (Wight, Evans, Hanlon, Rugers)
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel (DPMO) announced today that two of four U.S. Army Air Forces airmen missing in action from World War II have been identified, and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The four are pilot Capt. Douglas R. Wight, Westfield, N.J.; co-pilot 1st Lt. Herbert W. Evans, Rapid City, S.D.; crew chief Cpl. John W. Hanlon, Arnett, Okla.; and radio operator Pfc. Gerald L. Rugers, Jr., Tacoma, Wash. Evans and Rugers were individually identified, while group remains of all four will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C. on Tuesday.
On March 27, 1944, a C-46 crewed by these four airmen departed a base in Kunming, China, on route to Sookerating, India, as part of the massive allied resupply missions over the Himalayan Mountains, referred to as the “Hump.” En route one of the crewmen called out for a bearing, suggesting the aircraft was lost. There was no further communication with the crew. The aircraft never reached its destination, and searches during and following World War II failed to locate the crash site.
Officials from the People’s Republic of China notified the U.S. in early 2001 that the wreckage of an American WWII aircraft had been found on Meiduobai Mountain in a remote area of Tibet. The following year, a joint U.S.-P.R.C. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated the site where they found human remains, aircraft debris and personal items related to the crew.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identifications.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Hoskins, Cooke, Amesbury
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | April 30, 2006
Air Force Sergeants MIA From Vietnam War Are Identified (Hoskins, Cooke, Amesbury)
The Department of Defense POW/ Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified.
They are TSgt. Donald R. Hoskins, Madison, Ind. and SSgt. Calvin C. Cooke, Washington, D.C. A third person from the crew, Maj. Harry A. Amesbury, has been previously identified. The funeral for Cooke will be at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington D.C. on June 20, with full military honors.
On April 26, 1972, Amesbury was piloting a C-130E Hercules to An Loc City, South Vietnam for an emergency resupply mission. Hoskins and Cooke were among those aboard the aircraft when it was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Enemy activity prevented any recovery attempts until three years later in 1975 when a Vietnamese search team recovered artifacts and remains that were later identified as belonging to another crewman.
In 1988, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) confiscated remains from a Vietnamese national in Ho Chi Minh City and returned them to the U.S. custody. The remains were attributed to Cooke by the Vietnamese.
In April 1989, a Vietnamese woman living in Thailand told U.S. interviewers that she witnessed the crash of a C-130 in 1972 near An Loc City. She was a schoolteacher at the time of the incident but moved due to hostilities in the area. She told interviewers that two of her former students found the complete remains of one of the crewmen, a uniform, identification tags and other items they were keeping at one of their homes. The students gave her a bone fragment and information from the identification tag of Amesbury, both of which she turned over to the interviewers.
The S.R.V. repatriated additional remains to the United States in June 1989, and January and November of 1991 that were attributed to Cooke and Amesbury.
In 1992, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed several Vietnamese nationals who claimed to have recovered remains from a C-130 crash site near An Loc. The villagers recalled finding a flight suit and almost the complete skeletal remains of one of the crewmen. One of them led the joint team to the crash site and another turned over several small fragments of bone and an identification tag rubbing for Amesbury.
Another joint team returned to the crash site for excavation in 1993 where they recovered additional remains, personal effects and crew related artifacts.
The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia contacted JPAC officials in 1998 about a woman living in Georgia who had remains and personal artifacts attributed to Amesbury. Those were turned over to JPAC as part of the evidence associated with this case.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identifications.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,805 are from the Vietnam War. Another 841 Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war, with 601 of those from Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Paschal, Giugliano, Gullion, Rehmet, Widsteen, King, Lowery, Luckenbach, May, Borofsky, Harm
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | April 19, 2006
Airmen Missing In Action From WWII Are Identified (Paschal, Giugliano, Gullion, Rehmet, Widsteen, King, Lowery, Luckenbach, May, Borofsky, Harm)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of eleven U.S. airmen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Capt. Thomas C. Paschal, El Monte, Calif.; 1st Lt. Frank P. Giugliano, New York, N.Y.; 1st Lt. James P. Gullion, Paris, Tex.; 2d Lt. Leland A. Rehmet, San Antonio, Tex.; 2d Lt. John A. Widsteen, Palo Alto, Calif., SSgt. Richard F. King, Moultrie, Ga.; SSgt. William Lowery, Republic, Penn.; SSgt. Elgin J. Luckenbach, Luckenbach, Tex.; SSgt. Marion B. May, Amarillo, Tex.; Sgt. Marshall P. Borofsky, Chicago, Ill.; Sgt. Walter G. Harm, Philadelphia, Penn.; all U.S. Army Air Forces.
The group remains of the entire crew are to be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC, as are the individual remains of each man with the exception of King, Giugliano and Widsteen, whose families have elected hometown burials.
On April 16, 1944, Paschal and Widsteen were piloting a B-24J Liberator with the other nine men aboard. The aircraft was returning to Nadzab, New Guinea after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The plane was last seen off the coast of the island flying into poor weather.
The loss was investigated following the war and a military board concluded that the aircraft had been lost over water and was unrecoverable.
In early 2001 a team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a native of Papua New Guinea who claimed to have found the aircraft crash and recovered identification media for May and Harm. The team surveyed the site in 2002 and found wreckage that matched Paschal’s B-24J tail number along with human remains. They also took custody of remains previously collected by the villager.
Later that year, two additional JPAC teams excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts. Identification tags were found for Luckenbach, May and Paschal. Other crew-related materials found were consistent with items used by the Army Air Forces around 1944.
Mitochondrial DNA obtained from dental and bone samples was one of the forensic tools used by JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists to identify the airmen.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | March 9, 2006
Airman Lost In 1942 Crash Is Identified (Mustonen)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial.
He is Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen, 22, of Brainard, Minn. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Mustonen was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight which departed Mather Field, Calif., on November 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no results.
In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered the aircraft wreckage. Human remains of three of the crew found at the site were buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.
Several other hikers on Mendel Glacier (adjacent to Darwin Glacier) discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial evidence and personal effects in October 2005. Park rangers from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and a forensic anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) recovered the remains, which were later shipped to the JPAC laboratory in Hawaii.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) also used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools in the process. U.S. Army Casualty and Mortuary officials located and briefed representatives of the families of all four crewmen.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Barker, Dugan, Dillender, Chubb
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | Feb. 14, 2006
Army Soldiers MIA From Vietnam War Are Identified (Barker, Dugan, Dillender, Chubb)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified. They will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Maj. Jack L. Barker, Waycross, Ga.; Capt. John F. Dugan, Roselle, N.J.; Sgt. William E. Dillender, Naples, Fla.; and Pfc. John J. Chubb, Gardena, Calif., all from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Chubb will be buried in Inglewood, Calif. on Feb. 18. Barker, Dugan and Dillender will be buried on April 12 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. D.C.
On March 20, 1971, Maj. Barker and Capt. Dugan were piloting a UH-1H Huey helicopter, with Sgt. Dillender and Pfc. Chubb on board. The aircraft was participating in a troop extraction mission in the Savannakhet Province of Laos. As the helicopter approached the landing zone, it was hit by heavy enemy ground fire. It exploded in the air and there were no survivors. Continued enemy activity in the area prevented any recovery attempts.
A refugee in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand showed an identification tag of Pfc. Chubb and a medallion to a U.S. interviewer in 1986. The medallion was reportedly recovered near the same general location from an F-105 crash site. However, the location and the aircraft type did not correlate with the missing aircraft and soldiers.
Between 1988 and 2001, joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic teams, lead by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and three excavations for these soldiers without positive results. An investigation team surveyed three crash sites in 2002 after interviewing local villagers from the province. The team recovered a fragment of human tooth and some crew-related artifacts from one of the crash sites.
In October and November 2004, another joint investigation team excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related evidence. The wreckage was from a UH-1H helicopter, and the team found insignia worn by members of the 101st Airborne Division.
The remains included nine fragments of teeth which the forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match with detailed information from medical and dental records.
From the Vietnam War, 1,807 Americans are still unaccounted-for with 364 of those from Laos. Another 839 have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia with 208 of those from losses in Laos.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703)-699-1169.
Colonel Eugene D. Hamilton
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | Feb. 3, 2006
Air Force Officer MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Hamilton)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Colonel Eugene D. Hamilton of Opelika, Ala. Final arrangements for his funeral have not been set.
On January 31, 1966, Hamilton was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam when his F-105D Thunderchief was hit by enemy ground fire over the Ha Tinh province. His mission was part of a larger operation, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, which attacked air defense systems and the flow of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Airborne searches for his crash site that day were unsuccessful. A radio broadcast from Hanoi reported an F-105 had been shot down but did not provide any details.
Between July 1993 and November 2000, joint U.S.-Vietnam teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and one excavation searching for the pilot and his plane.
An investigation team in March 2000 learned from a Vietnamese villager that an area excavated in 1997 was not the location of the pilot’s burial. A second location was then excavated Aug.-Sept. 2000, which did yield aircraft wreckage, personal effects and human remains.
In 2004, three Vietnamese citizens turned over to a JPAC team remains they had found at the same crash site a year earlier.
In late May 2005, the JPAC team recovered fragments of possible human remains and life support equipment from the 2000 crash site. Personal effects found there also included a leather name tag with the name “HAMILTON” partially visible on it.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed his identity.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,807 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,382 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 839 Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end, with 599 from Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Seaman Second Class Warren P. Hickok
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | Dec. 15, 2005
Navy Seaman Missing From Pearl Harbor Attack Is Identified (Hickok)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy seaman, missing in action from the attack on Pearl Harbor, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Seaman Second Class Warren P. Hickok of Kalamazoo, Mich. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Hickok was assigned to the Light Mine Layer USS Sicard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Many crewmembers from the Sicard, including Hickok, were dispatched to assist the crew of the USS Cummings, a Navy destroyer docked nearby. The Cummings succeeded in getting underway and clearing Pearl Harbor, but no casualties were reported aboard that ship. During an investigation to determine who was still unaccounted-for after the attack, it was surmised that Hickok may have been a casualty aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania. Some crewmen from the Sicard had been dispatched to the Pennsylvania during the attack, but there was no record to indicate that Hickok was lost aboard that ship.
In the days following the attack, burial details interred many of the unknown dead in Nuuanu Cemetery on Oahu. Among those buried were an unknown sailor identified only as X-2. Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service oversaw the disinterment of unknown remains, including the X-2 remains. They could not be identified, and were reburied in Section E, Grave 731, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, on June 9, 1949.
In 2004, an avocational historian contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii and suggested that the remains in Grave 731 may be those of Hickok. Based on available records, JPAC exhumed the grave in June 2005. Forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match those remains, including dental remains, with detailed information found in Hickok’s World War II medical and dental records.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Seaman Second Class Dee Hall
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | Dec. 14, 2005
Navy Seaman MIA From World War II Is Identified (Hall)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial tomorrow with full military honors.
He is Seaman Second Class Dee Hall, of Syra, Oklahoma. He is to be buried at the Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.
Hall was one of seven crewmen aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina which took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor.
The crew encountered inclement weather near the target, as well as heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held island of Kiska with all seven crewmen on board.
In August 1943, the U.S. retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska Volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked “Seven U.S.N. Airmen” with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a WWII aircraft on the slope of Kiska Volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 where they found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identifications of all seven crewmembers.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II War. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon
Recently IdentifiedPress Release | Dec. 7, 2005
Air Force Sergeant MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Shannon)
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon of Owasso, Okla. Funeral arrangements are yet to be set by his family.
Shannon and 18 other servicemen operated a radar installation atop Pha Thi Mountain in Houaphan Province, Laos, approximately 13 miles south of the border with North Vietnam. The site, known at Lima Site 85, directed U.S. bombing missions toward key targets in North Vietnam.
In the early morning of March 11, 1968, the site came under attack by a force of North Vietnamese commandos. The enemy force had scaled the sheer mountainsides in the hours before the attack and overran the site. During the attack, some Americans made their way down to ledges, but survivors reported that several were killed.
Several hours later, U.S. aircraft attacked enemy positions around the site, enabling helicopters to rescue eight of the 19 Americans, though one of the survivors died en route to a base in Thailand. Later that day, and for four additional days, U.S. air strikes bombed the site to destroy technical equipment left behind.
Beginning in 1994, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) began interviewing witnesses in both Laos and Vietnam to gather information on the fates of the Americans. Some of those interviewed were villagers who lived near the site, while others were former enemy soldiers who carried out the attack. In 2002, one of the enemy soldiers stated that he helped throw the bodies of the Americans off the mountain after the attack as they were unable to bury them on the rocky surface.
Between 1994 and 2004, 11 investigations were conducted by both JPAC and unilaterally by Lao and Vietnamese investigators on both sides of the border. During one of the investigations, several mountaineer-qualified JPAC specialists scaled down the cliffs where they recovered remains and personal gear on ledges. JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory scientists used mitochondrial DNA and other forensic techniques to identify the remains as those of Shannon.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,812 are from the Vietnam War. Another 771 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of the Americans identified, 199 are from losses in Laos.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.