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## News Release

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# Airman Missing From WWII To Be Honored (Dobovich)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. serviceman, who went missing in November 1946, will be returned tohis family for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Zoltan J. Dobovich, 21, of Rieglesville, Pa., will be buried onDec. 27, in Wrightstown, N.J. On Nov. 1, 1946, Dobovich and seven other crew members wereaboard a B-17G Flying Fortress that went missing after departing from Naples, Italy, bound forBovington, England. During the months following the loss, search and rescue attempts provedunsuccessful and the remains of the crewmen were declared non-recoverable.

In 1947, a French military unit operating in the French-Italian Alps, near EstelletteGlacier, found the wreckage of a U.S. aircraft at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet. The Frenchteam recovered human remains from the site which were turned over to U.S. officials. They alsoreported that much of the ice-covered wreckage would likely not emerge for 30 years, after theglacier descended the slope. Due to the technology limitations of the time, the remains could notbe attributed to individuals and were interred as a group, representing the B-17G crew, atArlington National Cemetery.

From 1983 to 1999, as the glacier descended, additional remains and personal effects wererecovered and turned over to U.S. officials.

In 2010, due to advances in technology, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA AccountingCommand (JPAC) reevaluated the evidence and used mitochondrial DNA— which matched thatof Dobovich’s cousin — in the identification of his remains.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died.Today, more than 73,000 remain 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.

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