DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2014 – The Department of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Office announced that the remains of missing World War II
servicemen have been accounted for and are being returned to their families for
burial with full military honors, according to a DoD news release issued today.
Army Air Forces 1st Lts. William D. Bernier of Augusta,
Montana; Bryant E. Poulsen of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Herbert V. Young Jr. of
Clarkdale, Arizona; Tech Sgts. Charles L. Johnston of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
and Hugh F. Moore of Elkton, Maryland; Staff Sgts. John E. Copeland of Dearing,
Kansas and Charles J. Jones of Athens, Georgia; and Sgt. Charles A. Gardner of
San Francisco, California, have been accounted for and will be buried with full
military honors. Gardner will be buried Dec. 4, 2014, in Arlington National
Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
On April 10, 1944, Gardner, along with 11 other B-24D
Liberator crew members, took off from Texter Strip, Nazdab Air Field, New
Guinea, on a mission to attack an anti-aircraft site at Hansa Bay. The aircraft
was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire over the Madang Province, New Guinea.
Four of the crewmen were able to parachute from the aircraft, but were reported
to have died in captivity.
Following World War II, the Army Graves Registration Service
conducted investigations and recovered the remains of three of the missing
airmen. In May 1949, AGRS concluded the remaining nine crew members were
unrecoverable.
In 2001, a U.S.-led team located wreckage of a B-24D that
bore the tail number of this aircraft. After several surveys, the Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command teams excavated the site and recovered human remains and
non-biological material evidence.
To identify Gardner’s remains, scientists from JPAC and the
Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence and
forensic identification tools, including mitochondrial DNA, which matched
Gardner’s maternal niece and nephew.
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