Airman Missing in Action from WWII Identified, 08/22/2012 08:32 AM CDT
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 696-12
August 22, 2012
Airman Missing in Action from WWII Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office
(DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in
action from World War II, has been identified and returned to his family
for burial with full military honors.
Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. John E. Hogan, of West
Plains, Mo., will be buried Aug. 24, in Arlington National Cemetery. On
Sept. 13, 1944, Hogan and eight other crew members were on a B-17G
Flying Fortress that crashed near Neustädt-on-Werra, Germany. Only one
of the crewmen is known to have successfully parachuted out of the
aircraft before in crashed. The remaining eight crewmen were buried by
German forces in a cemetery in Neustädt.
Following the war, U.S. Army Graves Registration
personnel attempted to recover the remains of the eight men, but were
only able to move the remains of one man to a U.S. military cemetery in
Holland. In 1953, with access to eastern Germany restricted by the
Soviet Union, the remains of the seven unaccounted for crewmen were
declared non-recoverable.
In 1991, a German national who was digging a grave in
the cemetery in Neustädt, discovered a metal U.S. military
identification tag and notified officials. Due to German burial law,
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) wasn't granted access to the
site until 2007 and excavated the location in 2008. The team recovered
human remains and additional metal identification tags from three of the
crewmembers.
Scientists from JPAC used forensic identification
tools, circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial DNA which matched
that of Hogan's cousin in the identification of his remains.
At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable
to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more
than 73,000 are unaccounted for from the conflict.
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.