Officials identify Airman missing in action Published Nov. 4, 2008 WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office officials here announced Nov. 3 that the remains of a U.S. Airman missing in action from World War II have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Staff Sgt. Martin F. Troy of the Army Air Forces from Norwalk, Conn. He will be buried Nov. 20 in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. On June 30, 1944, Sergeant Troy was on a B-24H Liberator participating in a mission to bomb an oil refinery in Blechammer, Germany. The plane was shot down by German aircraft and crashed into a swampy area near Nemesvita, Hungary, beside Lake Balaton. Seven of the crewmembers parachuted to safety where they were captured by enemy forces and subsequently released. Three crewmen died in the crash and the remains for two of them were eventually recovered and identified. Sergeant Troy's remains were not recovered. In 1999 and 2003, Hungarian citizens turned over to U.S. officials human remains supposedly recovered from Sergeant Troy's crash site. In 2003 and 2005, Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command teams surveyed the site. In 2007, another JPAC team excavated the site and recovered human remains and nonbiological evidence. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Sergeant Troy's remains. Comment on this story (comments may be published on Air Force Link) View the comments/letters page