Marine Pilot Missing In Action From WWII Is Identified Maj. Marion McCown Jr. Is Finally Coming Home
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO)
announced last week the remains of a US serviceman, 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 Maj. Marion R. McCown Jr., US Marine Corps, of Charleston,
SC. He will be buried on January 18 in Charleston.
Representatives from the Marine Corps Mortuary Office met with
McCown's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification
process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf
of the secretary of the Navy.
On January 20, 1944 McCown was the pilot of an F-4U Corsair
aircraft that failed to return from a combat mission over Rabaul,
New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
In 1991, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) team
excavated an F-4U crash site in Rabaul and recovered human remains
and McCown's identification tag. However, forensic science at that
time precluded an identification.
In 2006, a JPAC team surveyed the crash site in preparation for
a recovery. While at the site, a villager living in the area turned
over to the team human remains that he claimed to have recovered
from the site. In 2008, another JPAC team excavated the site and
recovered additional human remains.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence, scientists from JPAC used dental comparisons in the
identification of McCown's remains.
FMI:
www.dtic.mil/dpmo 
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