Airemen Missing from World War II Accounted For

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that two 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 Force 2nd Lt. Valorie L. Pollard of Monterey, Calif. and Sgt. Dominick J. Licari of Frankfort, N.Y. will be buried as a group in a single casket, on Sept. 19 at Arlington National Cemetery. The individually-identified remains of Licari were buried on Aug. 6 in Frankfort, N.Y.

On March 13, 1944, Pollard and Licari were crew members of an A-20G Havoc bomber that failed to return to base in a country now known as Papua New Guinea. The aircraft crashed after attacking enemy targets on the island. In 2012, the A-20G crash site in the mountains of Papua New Guinea was excavated and the remains of Licari and Pollard were recovered.

There are more than 400,000 American service members that were killed during WWII, and the remains of more than 73,000 were never recovered or identified.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.