WASHINGTON –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced today that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. William E. Nevois, 21, of Praire du Rocher, Illinois, killed during World War II, was accounted for March 27, 2025.
Nevois’s family recently received their full briefing on his identification, therefore, additional details on his identification can be shared.
In the fall of 1944, Nevois was assigned to the 613th Bombardment Squadron, 401st Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force in the European Theater during World War II. On Oct. 7, Nevois co-piloted a B-17G “Flying Fortress” bomber, nicknamed “Son of a Blitz,” on a bombing mission targeting the German synthetic oil refinery in Politz, Germany. All nine crew members, including Nevois, were killed when the aircraft was hit by intense anti-aircraft fire.
In 1948, an American Graves Registration Command investigation in the village of Hohenbruck (now Widziensko) Poland, led to the recovery of five sets of remains from several adjacent graves marked with American air crew helmets. Two of the sets of remains were identified as crewmembers from Nevois’s crew while the remaining three were transported to U.S. Military Cemetery Neuville, Belgium. By July 7, 1949, it was determined that the three remaining unknowns were the only recoverable remains that could be associated with Nevois’s crew. They were reinterred in Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, in February 1950.
In 2019, a DPAA investigation team traveled to Poland to survey crash in Police, Poland. It was determined that one of these sites likely belonged to Nevois’s aircraft. During the investigation, a local Polish third-party researchers informed DPAA personnel that an elderly witness saw multiple unknown airmen fall from the sky near her village in 1944. Members of the German Luftwaffe buried their remains in unmarked graves in the village cemetery in Budzien, Poland. In November 2022, DPAA personnel and a team from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland, exhumed these graves, recovering remains buried with equipment and clothing of American airmen from World War II. The remains were transported to DPAA’s laboratory for scientific analysis.
To identify Nevois’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.
Nevois will be buried on May 16, 2026, in his hometown.
For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.
DPAA is grateful to the Pomeranian Medical University for their assistance in this mission.
For additional information on the War Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving their country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil or on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa, https://www.linkedin.com/company/dodpaa, https://www.instagram.com/dodpaa/, or https://x.com/dodpaa.
Nevois’s initial ID announcement can be viewed at: https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/ID-Announcements/Article/4304934/airman-accounted-for-from-world-war-ii-nevois-e/.