(Photo provided by Chris Plennert) |
One was a local man: Sergeant John J. Harringer Jr. of South Bend.
The Department of Defense said in a news release Friday that the crew was on a bombing mission over Berlin in April 1944 when their B-24J Liberator aircraft crashed near East Meitze, Germany. There were no survivors.
The crash site was located in 2003 and human remains were turned over to U.S. officials. Additional remains were gathered two years later by a joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team. Scientists used dental analysis and DNA to identify remains.
The ten airmen will be buried as a group in a single casket Wednesday. Members of Harringer's family will travel to Arlington to attend the ceremony.
More than 73,000 Americans remain unaccounted-for from World War II.
