The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO)
announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from
World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family
for burial with full military honors.
Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Samuel E. Lunday, of Marianna,
Fla., will be buried today, at Arlington National Cemetery near
Washington, DC. On April 24, 1943, Lunday and four other U.S.
servicemen were flying a C-87 Liberator Express aircraft over the
Himalayan Mountains, from Yangkai, China, to their home base in Chabua,
India.
After losing radio communications following take-off, the crew
was never heard from again. Eleven aerial search missions were unable
to locate the aircraft or crew due to intense snows on the mountains at
high altitudes, and dense jungle growth at lower altitudes.
As part of the war effort against the Japanese, U.S. Army
Air Forces cargo planes based in India continually airlifted critical
supplies over the high mountain ranges that comprise the Himalayas --
known as "The Hump" -- in support of American airbases in China. The
amount of materiel flown over the Himalayas was a logistical achievement
unparalleled at the time.
Almost 60 years later, in 2003, an American citizen
discovered the wreckage of the C-87 aircraft while trekking in the
mountains, approximately 100 miles from Chabua, near the Burmese
border. He recovered the aircraft's identification plate, military
equipment and human remains. The artifacts and remains were turned over
to U.S. officials for analysis. Attempts to excavate the site are
being negotiated with the Indian government.
To determine the identity of the remains, scientists from
the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial
DNA -- which matched that of Lunday's nephews.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II,
more than 400,000 died. Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted-for
from the conflict.