Tuskegee Airman Remains Identified After He Went Missing 78 Years Ago During WWII
The Department of Defense has identified the remains of a World War II soldier who went missing in 1944.
Brewer’s family is asking that he be buried in his hometown of Charlotte. https://t.co/uY0IPqr44g
— WSOCTV (@wsoctv) September 4, 2023
The remains were confirmed to be 2nd Lt. Fred L. Brewer Jr., a Tuskegee airman of the 100th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, in the European Theater.
The DOD offered his history noting, “On Oct. 19, Brewer departed Ramitelli Air Base, Italy, as one of 57 fighters assigned to escort bombers to their targets in Regensburg, Germany.”
“While enroute to their targets, the bomber group encountered heavy cloud cover over the Udine area of Italy, which forced several escort fighters to return early. According to another pilot witness, Brewer had attempted a steep climb to get above the cloud cover, which caused the engine of his P-51C Mustang, Traveling Light, to stall,” the story went on.
“It was reported Brewer’s aircraft had rolled over with the canopy jettisoned, but he was not observed ejecting from the plane. Brewer’s remains were not recovered, and he was subsequently declared missing in action,” the report concluded.
The case was revisited in 2011 when researchers discovered an Italian resident of Moggio Udinese, Italy, who found airplane wreckage and built a memorial for fallen WWII American soldiers with the materials.
It was around this time that the Unknown Remains X-125 Mirandola (X-125), a soldier who was recovered at the Moggio Udinese civilian cemetery by Americans in 1946 and buried at the Florence American Cemetery, were exhumed by the DPAA for forensic analyst in 2022.
DPAA scientists utilized anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence, while scientists from the Armed Forced Medical Examiner System matched mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.
Brewer’s name was placed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Impruneta, Italy. Now, a rosette will be placed beside his name to display that he has been accounted for.
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