P-MAN XI Update #25 - Leave No Man Behind
10 March 2009

Sorry this update was out of service for awhile. We thought we had some "official" information from JPAC, but it turned out that someone had jumped the gun, and there was a bit of a problem with interpretation of the data.

Nevertheless, the news is the kind of thing that those of us who've been involved with the BentProp Project really, truly live for. It has to do with the B-24 that we found in 2004, after a 10-year search.

You read in Update #15 that Tommy and Nancy Doyle have received formal notification from JPAC that the remains of Tommy's dad, Jimmie, have been positively identified and will be coming home. Here's the rest of the story:

JPAC has reported that they were able, during three recovery missions over four years, to recover remains of all eight individuals who went down with B-24 '453, which was shot down on 1 September 1944. They have been able to positively identify five of the sets of remains. They have three other sets of remains and they know who the other three individuals are, but they don't have sufficient structural and DNA information to determine which is which. So at some point (we'll try to let you know with an announcement on the front page of this Web site) there will be a group service when the remains of these three men are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Naturally, we'd have preferred eight positive identifications. But just to know that every man who died aboard '453 will be coming home gives all of us a kind of deep satisfaction that's hard to describe. You can probably imagine at least some of it.

But not all of it.

- Reid

Return to Progress Reports Index