An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

News Release

Press Release | June 29, 2012

Airman Missing From WWII Identified (Moxley)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman from World War II have been identified and are being returned to the family for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Warren G. Moxley, 23, of Charleston, Mo., will be buried on July 3, in his hometown. On March 15, 1945, Moxley was flying an F-6C aircraft when he crashed near Asbach, Germany. Another American pilot flying in the same mission witnessed the crash and did not see a parachute deploy. Following the war, Army Graves Registration Service was not able to locate the crash site.

In 1993, a German citizen led U.S. government officials to a crash site near Asbach, and turned over human remains. In 2006, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) investigation team interviewed the German citizen, gathered additional evidence, and concluded that Moxley’s aircraft was the only U.S. aircraft to crash in the area.

Among forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab used mitochondrial DNA—which matched that of Moxley’s brother—in the identification of his remains.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 73,000 remain unaccounted-for from the conflict.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420.