By Aya Elamroussi, CNN
The remains of a 23-year-old Utah man who died in a World War II bombing project have been identified, a federal firm said Thursday.
Elvin L. Phillips, who was a sergeant in the U. S. Air Force. A U. S. gunner aboard a plane that crashed north of Bucharest, Romania, in the summer of 1943, the POW/MIA Defense Accounting Agency said in a press release.
“To identify Phillips’ remains, DPAA scientists used anthropological analysis,” the firm explained, adding that the scientists also used mitochondrial DNA in their examination.
Now, Phillip’s remains will be buried in Bluffdale, Utah.
Their call had been etched on the shelves of the missing at the Florence American Cemetery, which is part of the American Commission on Battle Monuments in Impruneta, Italy. “A rosette will be placed next to your call to imply that you have been found,” the firm said.
Phillips was a member of the 66th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bombardment Group and tail gunner of the B-24 Liberator aircraft carrying 8 other workers and took off from Libya on 1 August 1943, as a component of Operation Tsunami in Romania. according to the accounting firm MIA.
The target is Ploiesti’s oil refineries, the firm said. Phillips was killed by anti-aircraft fire near Ploiesti and the badly damaged plane crashed. Two members of the team survived thanks to the rescue, he added.
Initially, Phillips’ remains were buried as unknown in the heroes segment of the Civil and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.
After the war, the American Graves Registration Command recovered all American remains from the cemetery for identification. It could not identify more than 80 unknown people and the remains were buried in two cemeteries in Belgium, the firm said.
In 2017, the company began exhuming unknown remains suspected of being related to the lack of airmen from Operation Tidal Wave. The remains were sent to the company’s laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for examination and identification, the company said. Phillips’ remains were known in March.
World War II began in 1939 and ended in 1945, with more than 16 million American infantrymen serving in battle. A total of 405,399 U. S. infantrymen died in the war.
El-CNN-Wire™
CNN’s Paradise Afshar contributed to this report.
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