The Defense
Department’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced May 22 it had identified the
remains of Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Alvin Beethe, a P-38 pilot assigned to the
393rd Fighter Squadron during World War II. Beethe, whose went out on a bombing
mission near Duren, Germany, on Nov. 26, 1944, and never returned, will be
buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on June 8. A
fellow pilot reported that Beethe’s aircraft crashed near the town of
Morschenich, but attempts to recover the remains were unsuccessful until
private German citizens notified the Defense Department of the crash site in
2008. In June 2013, another DOD team excavated the site and recovered human
remains and aircraft wreckage, according to a May 22
release. Forensic
scientists used tools such as matching mitochondrial and Y-chromosome short
tandem repeat DNA with family members, to identify the remains. Of the 16 million
Americans to serve in the second World War, more than 73,000 are still
unaccounted for, according to the release.
