An official website of the United States government         Here's how you know         
**Official websites use .mil**
A **.mil** website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
**Secure .mil websites use HTTPS**
 A **lock (lock )** or **https://** means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to main content (Press Enter).

Defense POW/MIA Accounting AgencyFulfilling Our Nation's Promise

Search
Search

Search

              - 
              - 
              - 

-  Home		 
-  Families		 
-  Our Missing    -  Searchable List of the Missing             
  -  Searchable Map of the Missing             
  -  Recently Accounted For             
  -  World War II      -  World War II Summary             
    -  Battle of Tarawa             
    -  Attack on Pearl Harbor 
  -  Korean War      -  Korean War Summary             
    -  Battle of Chosin Reservoir             
    -  Battle of Unsan             
    -  Korean Air Battles             
    -  The Inchon Campaign             
    -  The Pusan Perimeter             
    -  The DMZ Campaigns             
    -  Korean War Disinterments             
    -  Operation Glory             
    -  POW Camps 
  -  Vietnam War      -  Vietnam War Summary             
    -  Vietnam War Identification Project             
    -  Tet Offensive             
    -  Battle of Khe Sanh             
    -  Mayaguez Incident             
    -  Battle of Ia Drang             
    -  Lam Son 
  -  Cold War             
  -  Gulf Wars & Libya             
  -  Unknowns 
-  News & Stories    -  Our Stories             
  -  Press Releases             
  -  DPAA In The News             
  -  Year In Review 
-  Multimedia    -  Livestreams             
  -  Podcast             
  -  Briefing Videos             
  -  Science Videos             
  -  DPAA Laboratory             
  -  Media Gallery 
-  Resources    -  FAQs             
  -  AFMES DNA Laboratory             
  -  Publicly Released Documents             
  -  Family/VSO Update Notes             
  -  Family Member Guide             
  -  POW/MIA Day Toolkit             
  -  USRJC 
-  About    -  Leadership             
  -  Vision-Mission-Values             
  -  DPAA Organizational Chart 
-  Contact    -  Contact Us             
  -  Join Us      -  Careers 
  -  Report a Site             
  -  Donate to the Mission 
-  Volunteer		 

## News Release

# Airmen Missing In Action From WWII Identified (Volz, Dietz, Lake, Murray, Shryock, Wren, Smith, Chastain, Green, Harris, Ray, Tyler)    

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains 12 U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identifiedand are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Jack E. Volz, 21, of Indianapolis; 2nd Lt. Regis E. Dietz, 28, ofPittsburgh; 2nd Lt. Edward J. Lake, 25, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; 2nd Lt. Martin P. Murray, 21, ofLowell, Mass.; 2nd Lt. William J. Shryock, 23, of Gary, Ind.; Tech. Sgt. Robert S. Wren, 25, ofSeattle; Tech. Sgt. Hollis R. Smith, 22, of Cove, Ark.; Staff Sgt. Berthold A. Chastain, 27, Dalton,Ga.; Staff Sgt. Clyde L. Green, 24, Erie, Penn.; Staff Sgt. Frederick E. Harris, 23, Medford,Mass.; Staff Sgt. Claude A. Ray, 24, Coffeyville, Kan.; and Staff Sgt. Claude G. Tyler, 24,Landover, Md. The remains representing the entire crew will be buried as a group, in a singlecasket, August 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Eight of the airmen wereidentified and buried as individuals during previous ceremonies. Shryock, Green and Harris were alsoindividually identified and will be interred individually at Arlington on the same day as the groupinterment.

These 12 airmen were ordered to carry out a reconnaissance mission in their B-24DLiberator, taking off from an airfield near Port Moresby, New Guinea, on Oct. 27, 1943. Alliedplans were being formulated to mount an attack on the Japanese redoubt at Rabaul, New Britain.American strategists considered it critical to take Rabaul in order to support the eventual invasionof the Philippines. The crew’s assigned area of reconnaissance was the nearby shipping lanes inthe Bismarck Sea. But during their mission, they were radioed to land at a friendly air stripnearby due to poor weather conditions. The last radio transmission from the crew did not indicatetheir location, and in the following weeks, multiple searches over land and sea areas did not locatethe aircraft.

Following World War II, the Army Graves Registration Service conducted investigationsand searches for 43 missing airmen, including these airmen, in the area but concluded in June1949 that they were unrecoverable.

In August 2003 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) receivedinformation on a crash site from a citizen in Papua New Guinea while they were investigatinganother case. He also turned over an identification card from one of the crew members andreported that there were possible human remains at the site of the crash. Twice in 2004 otherJPAC teams attempted to visit the site but were unable to do so due to poor weather andhazardous conditions at the helicopter landing site. Another team was able to successfullyexcavate the site from January to March 2007 where they found several identification tags fromthe B-24D crew as well as human remains.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPACand the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA—which matched thatof some of the crewmembers’ families—in the identification of their remains

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. At theend of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000Americans. Today, more than 73,000 are 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.

**                    SHARE                

**                    PRINT