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Surnames: Cameron, Hafner
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/3UH.2ACIB/1597
Message Board Post:
July 18, 2006
Missing WWII Airmen Identified
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that nine servicemen
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 Staff Sgt. William C. Cameron, Los Angeles, Calif.. . . . . All were members of
the 63rd Bombardment Squadron, 43 Bombardment Group.
<snip>
On November 4, 1943 Hafner and his crew took off in a B-24 Liberator from Dobodura,
Territory of New Guinea. The men were on an armed reconnaissance mission over the Bismark
Sea. A few hours into the flight Hafner sighted a convoy of Japanese ships and was told to
shadow the convoy and report back. Four hours later the crew radioed from the B-24 that
they had made three direct hits on the convoy and destroyed the target. That was the last
radio contact with the crew.
In March 2002 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was contacted by a
local government official through the U.S. Embassy. The team was exploring unrelated WW II
aircraft crash sites in Papua New Guinea. The official turned over aircraft data plates,
human remains and three ID tags which had been found at a crash site in Morobe Province.
During the excavation of the site in Aug.-Sept. 2003, the team recovered additional
remains and personal effects including identification tags and bracelets. The remains were
submitted to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL). Specialists at JPAC
and AFDIL used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains
of these servicemen. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their
identification.
For additional information on the Defense Department¹s mission to account for missing
Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060718-13477.html
See link for complete article.