WASHINGTON –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Charles G. Reynolds, 24, of Bridgeport, Ohio, killed during World War II, was accounted for July 18, 2023.
In late November 1943, Reynolds was a pilot assigned to the 498th Bombardment Squadron, 345th Bombardment Group, in the Southwest Pacific Theater. On November 27, the B-25D Mitchell which Reynolds was a crewmember of, did not return from its bombing mission near Wewak, New Guinea. The aircraft had sustained heavy damage from anti-aircraft fire and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing in the waters of Karau Lagoon, in the Murik Lakes. Efforts to recover Reynolds’s remains were unsuccessful, and the crew was labeled Missing In Action.
Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel, conducted exhaustive searches of battle areas and crash sites in New Guinea, concluding their search in late 1948. Investigators recovered fragmentary sets of human remains near Murik, as well as wreckage that was identified as belonging to a B-25 Mitchell. The remains, designated X-4180 and X-4196, were consolidated and declared unidentifiable, and were interred at Fort McKinley Cemetery in Manila.
After reviewing archival documents and the personnel files for a number of unresolved service members, including 1st Lt Reynolds, DPAA historians and forensic anthropologists recommended the exhumation of the Unknown from the cemetery in Manila. This recommendation was approved in May 2020, and on 19 December 2020, X-4180 was exhumed and sent to the DPAA Laboratory for identification.
To identify Reynolds’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Reynolds’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Reynolds will be buried in Bridgeport, Ohio, on a date to be determined.
For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.
DPAA is grateful to the American Battle Monuments Commission for their partnership in this mission.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.
Reynolds’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000001RAInTEAX.