The remains of three U. S. servicemen, missing in action since 1941, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Augustus J. Allen, of Myrtle Springs, Texas; Staff Sgt. James D. Cartwright, of Los Angeles, Calif.; and Cpl. Paul R. Stubbs, of Haverhill, Mass.

On June 8, 1941, the three men departed France Field, Panama, in an O-47A aircraft, en route to Rio Hato, Panama. When the aircraft failed to arrive, a search was initiated by both air and ground forces. They were not found.

In April 1999, a Panamanian man found the aircraft wreckage while hunting in the mountains of Panama Province and reported it to Panamanian Civil Aeronautics (PCA.

After a PCA search and rescue team visited the site, the wreckage was reported to the Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command. Command specialists surveyed the area in August 1999 and, in February 2002, excavated the site. They recovered remains and crew-related artifacts.

The crash site was along Lieutenant Allen's suspected flight path, and the aircraft was consistent with O-47A aircraft from their unit, the 39th Observation Squadron. Additionally, the team recovered crew-related items at the site which helped confirm the identity of the Airmen.

Scientists from the command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab used mitochondrial DNA as one of the tools to identify the remains.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and Desert Storm, 78,000 are from World War II.

For more information on the Department of Defense's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) Web site -- http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo -- or call (703) 699-1169.