Remains of U.S. flight crew from WWII found at remote Russian site

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A joint U.S.-Russian recovery team operating at a remote site in eastern Russia has discovered remains believed to be those of U.S. servicemen missing in action since World War II, the Pentagon announced Friday.

Members of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs said they positively identified the wreckage of a U.S. Navy PV-1 Ventura bomber during an August 7-9 visit to the steep face of Mutnovskiy volcano on the desolate Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia.

A number of sets of remains found at the site are believed to be those of the crew members of the Navy bomber.

The plane went missing on March 25, 1944, after taking off from a U.S. base on Attu in the Aleutian Island chain.

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The bomber and its seven-man crew was part of a five-plane formation that embarked on a bombing mission that day as part of what the military then called "The Empire Express." Their mission was to bomb targets on the Kurile Islands in northern Japan, the Pentagon statement said.

Of the five planes that took to the sky from Attu that day, only one was able to successfully complete the mission, the Pentagon said.

One of the planes crashed shortly after take off. Two others encountered extreme weather and were forced to drop their bomb loads in the ocean before returning to base. The last plane simply never returned.

It is that plane that was discovered by the team more 56 years after it disappeared.

Russian geologists apparently found the wreckage there decades ago but the discovery was not reported to the U.S. until recently, the Pentagon said.

The U.S. Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii has recommended that a U.S. team return to the barren site next summer to conduct a more complete excavation, in the hope of achieving a more complete accounting of the missing crewmen.

There are more than 78,000 U.S. servicemen unaccounted for from World War II.

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The Pentagon
U.S. Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii
National Alliance of POW/MIA Families
National World War II Memorial
United States Navy Patrol Squadrons Lockheed PV-1 Vega "Ventura" Aircraft
Restoration of Lockheed PV-1 Ventura

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