A lost U.S. airman has now been found.
The remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors, according to the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office.
The serviceman, 1st Lt. Shannon E. Estill, U.S. Army Air Forces, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will be buried on Oct. 10 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On April 13, 1945, Estill's P-38J Lightning was struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire while attacking targets in eastern Germany. Another U.S. pilot reported seeing Estill's aircraft explode and crash. Because the location of the crash site was within the Russian-controlled sector of occupied Germany, U.S. military personnel could not recover EstillÕs remains after the war.
In 2003, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command went to a site near the town of Elsnig in eastern Germany to investigate the crash. The site had been reported to officials by two German nationals whose hobby is finding the location of World War II crash sites, according to the DOD. The pair claimed to have found human remains at the site, which they turned over to U.S. Army officials. The team that surveyed the site interviewed two other men, who said they witnessed the crash when they were children.
More human remains were found at the site in 2005 by another JPAC team excavating the crash site. Besides human remains, the team also found P-38 wreckage. The military reported that an aircraft data plate from EstillÕs plane was also recovered in the wreckage.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory said they used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains, matching DNA sequences from a maternal relative.
You may visit the DPMO Web site to find out more information on the Defense DepartmentÕs mission to account for missing Americans.
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