68 Years Later, WWII Airman Martin Murray's Body Found on South Pacific Island

Nearly 68 years after a Massachusetts airman took off on a reconnaissance flight over the South Pacific during World War II, his remains have been found and are en route home to America for burial with full military honors.

U.S. Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Martin Murray was piloting a B-24D Liberator plane that took off from an airfield on the island of New Guinea on Oct. 27, 1943, with 11 other crewmen aboard. He was flying a reconnaissance mission over shipping lanes in the Bismarck Sea, ahead of an attack on Japanese forces nearby. But the mission was scrapped midflight because of bad weather, and flight controllers instructed Murray to land the plane at a friendly airstrip on an island nearby.

The plane never landed, and the crew's fate -- until now -- was unknown.

68 Years Later, WWII Airman's Body Found in Pacific

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The remains of a Massachusetts airman, whose B-24 Liberator plane, like the one above, disappeared in the South Pacific during World War II, were found in New Guinea and are headed home to America for burial with full military honors.

After World War II, the U.S. military searched for the missing plane and crew, but no wreckage was found. In 1949, the U.S. government concluded they were presumed dead, and unrecoverable. New Guinea remains one of the world's most remote, rural and untouched places.

But 60 years after Murray's ill-fated mission, the military got a tip about his whereabouts. A villager in Papua New Guinea, came upon what looked like a decades-old crash site and retrieved an ID card belonging to one of the crew members, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. A team from the military's joint POW/MIA Accounting Command went to investigate.

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It took until 2007 for U.S. military teams to reach the site, deep in the jungle. Between January and March 2007, they scoured the site and found human remains, along with ID tags from the B-24D crew. Forensic scientists used dental records and DNA testing to identify Murray's remains. So far, Murray is the only positive ID.

Murray, originally from Lowell, Mass., was 21 at the time of his death. He was survived by his parents and three sisters, all of whom have since died. But several of Murray's cousins are still living, and they plan to give him a proper burial in Marshfield, Mass., this Saturday, with full military honors -- nearly 68 years late.

Nearly 75,000 Americans still remain missing, unrecovered or unidentified from World War II, the Pentagon said.