On March 19, 1945, 2nd Lt. Howard C. Enoch Jr., U.S. Army Air Forces, of Marion, Ky, was the pilot of a P-51D Mustang that crashed while engaging enemy aircraft about 20 miles east of Leipzig, near the village of Doberschütz, Germany. His remains were not recovered at the time, and Soviet occupation of eastern Germany precluded his recovery immediately after the war.In 2004, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) surveyed a possible P-51 crash site near Doberschütz. The team found aircraft wreckage. In 2006, another JPAC team excavated the site and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage.
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that Enoch’s remains, missing for 63 years, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He will be buried on Sept. 22 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
“Welcome home, Lt. Enoch,” Gov. Steve Beshear said today. “Rest in peace at Arlington, knowing we never forgot you.” Gov. Beshear will order U.S. and Kentucky flags to be lowered at state government facilities on Sept. 22 to honor Lt. Enoch’s sacrifice.
Representatives from the Army met with Enoch'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 Army.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Enoch's remains.
Samples of DNA from family members in Lt. Enoch’s family on his mother’s side made the identification possible. The Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs has a program to find family members of the 46 Kentuckians missing in the Korean War for whom JPAC does not yet have DNA samples.
