3 lost WWII airmen identified, to be buried

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The remains of three airmen missing in action from a World War II combat mission have been identified and returned to their families for burial, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
2nd Lt. David J. Nelson, of Chicago; Tech. Sgt. Henry F. Kortebein, of Maspeth, N.Y., and Tech Sgt. Blake A. Treece, Jr., of Marshall, Ark., are to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery today, the Pentagon said.
They were among nine airmen aboard a B-17G Flying Fortress on a mission to bomb targets near Caen, France, on Aug. 8, 1944, when the plane was hit by enemy fire and crashed.
German forces and French villagers recovered some of the remains of the crew and buried them nearby. Advancing U.S. forces found more remains, and six men were identified. But Nelson, Kortebein and Treece remained unaccounted for.
In August 2002, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, was told that a French aircraft wreckage hunting group had found a crash site where the B-17G went down. The U.S. team surveyed the site, excavated it in July 2004 and recovered human remains and other items.
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