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## News Release

# WWII Missing In Action Serviceman Identified (McKee)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces crewman have been identified and are being returnedto his family for burial with military honors.

Staff Sergeant Robert W. McKee of Garvey, Calif., will be buried in Arlington NationalCemetery on April 12.

On Dec. 17, 1944, McKee was an aerial gunner on an 11-member crew of aB-24L Liberator that took off from Pantanella, Italy, on a mission to bomb enemy targets nearBlechhammer, Germany. The aircraft crashed over Hungary, near the small towns of Böhönyeand Felsosegesd, with the loss of two crewmen including McKee. The other nine were able tosafely parachute from the aircraft. Following the war, the remains of the other unaccounted-forcrewman were found in a cemetery in Felsosegesd.

Following the war, remains from an American aircraft crash near Vienna, Austria, werefound buried with McKee’s military identification tag. But the remains were identified as thoseof another flyer. Further analysis revealed that McKee had flown on the same plane and had losthis identification tag, most likely on that aircraft.

In 1992 an undertaker recovered remains believed to be those of an American in theBöhönye, Hungary, cemetery but they could not be associated with a specific incident. But in2003, DPMO analysts obtained information from a Hungarian researcher which indicated thatthe remains might be associated with McKee’s loss. Aerial gunner’s wings were found in thegrave, as well as other items worn by U.S. bomber crews in 1944.

Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNAIdentification Laboratory used a number of forensic tools inc luding mitochondrial DNA toconfirm Staff Sergeant McKee’s identity, matching his DNA with that of two known maternalrelatives.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing 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 www.dtic.mil/dpmo, or call 703-699-1169.

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