(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Investigators from the Defense Department announced that they have identified the remains of a Chicagoan who was listed as missing after his bomber was shot down in World War II.
In February 1944, a U.S. Army Air Force bomber was shot down over Germany. Second Lt. Robert Porter was the navigator.
Two of the crew members survived the crash; Porter and six others did not. After the crash, German troops recovered the remains of one of the crew’s ball turret gunner and buried them in a local cemetery. The six other crew members, though, including Porter, went unaccounted for.
Those unidentified remains, though, were buried in a German cemetery and were recovered in 1952.
GIven that it wasn't possible to identify the remains at the time, they were interred in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium until 2021.
That's when they were exhumed. In December 2023, investigators from the Defense Department were able to identify Porter's remains through use of anthropological analysis and genetic material.
The Defense Department said Porter's remains will be buried in Elmwood at a date to be determined.
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