Nine Missing WWII Airmen Recovered in Germany

Their trip home comes more than sixty years after their deaths.

The crew was flying a B-24 Liberator over Germany when they were last seen, German citizens interested in war history performed the initial location of the site. Photo of B-24 art courtesy: National Guard

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of nine 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.

The airmen are 1st Lt. David P. McMurray, of Melrose, Mass.; 1st Lt. Raymond Pascual, of Houston, Texas; 2nd Lt. Millard C. Wells Jr., of Paris, Ky.; Tech. Sgt. Leonard J. Ray, of Upper Falls, Md.; Tech. Sgt. Hyman L. Stiglitz, of Boston, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Robert L. Cotey, of Vergennes, Vt.; Staff Sgt. Francis E. Larrivee, of Laconia, N.H.; Staff Sgt. Robert J. Flood, of Neelyton, Pa.; and Staff Sgt. Walter O. Schlosser, of Lake City, Mich.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. Ray and Flood were buried last week in Harford County, Md., and Dry Run, Pa., respectively. The burials of the other servicemen will be at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on a date to be determined.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.

On July 7th, 1944, the men were aboard a B-24J Liberator that departed North Pickenham, England, on a mission to bomb a German aircraft factory near Bernburg, Germany. The plane was last seen by U.S. aircrew members in that vicinity. Captured records revealed that it had crashed near Westeregeln, about 20 miles northwest of the target in what would become the Soviet sector of a post-war-divided Germany.

In 2001, a group of German citizens interested in recovering wartime relics and remains learned of a potential crash site south of Westeregeln. Later that year and in 2002, the group found the site and uncovered human remains from what appeared to be two burial locations. The remains and other personal effects, including identification tags, were turned over to U.S. officials.

In 2003, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) team excavated the crash site and recovered additional remains, identification tags and non-biological material evidence.

Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.