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Defense POW/MIA Accounting AgencyFulfilling Our Nation's Promise

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## News Release

# Missing WWII Airmen Are Identified (Nelson, Kortebein, Treece)

The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that three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 2d Lt. David J. Nelson, Chicago, Ill.; Tech. Sgt. Henry F. Kortebein,Maspeth, N.Y.; and Tech. Sgt. Blake A. Treece, Jr., Marshall, Ark., all U.S. Army AirForces. These men are to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.on Thursday, as are the group remains of their aircrew which was lost during World War II.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in theirhometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate intermentwith military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.

On August 8, 1944, Nelson, Kortebein and Treece departed an allied air base inEngland in their B-17G Flying Fortress with six other crewmen aboard. Their mission was tobomb enemy targets near Caen, France. The aircraft was seen to explode and crash afterbeing struck by enemy flak near the village of Lonlay l’Abbaye, south of Caen. The othersix members of the crew were 1st Lt. Jack R. Thompson; 2nd Lts. Charles Bacigalupa andCharles Sherrill; and Sgts. Richard R. Collins, Gerald F. Gillies and Warren D. Godsey. Thehometowns of these six are not available.

German forces and French villagers living near the crash site recovered some of theremains of the crew and buried them nearby. Advancing U.S. forces found additionalremains of the rest of the crew. Six of the nine crewmen ultimately were identified, butNelson, Kortebein and Treece remained unaccounted-for.

In August 2002, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)operating in Luxembourg was informed that a local French aircraft wreckage hunting group(Association Normande du Souvenir Aerien 39/45) had located a crash site near Lonlayl’Abbaye. The JPAC team surveyed the site, excavated it in July 2004 and recovered humanremains, personal effects and crew-related materials from amid the wreckage17. Also foundwere six unexploded 250-pound bombs.

Later that year, a French explosive ordnance disposal team turned over a bonefragment to the U. S. Defense Attaché in Paris. It was found by French technicians workingto secure the site where the bombs had been found.

Among other forensic identification tools, scientists from JPAC and the ArmedForces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification ofthe remains of the three, matching DNA sequences from maternal relatives.

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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