U.S. Navy Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Anthony Di Petta’s remains were recovered decades after he was killed on a World War II airstrike mission in the Pacific Ocean. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
(Tribune News Service) — A U.S. Navy sailor’s remains were recovered decades after he was killed on a World War II airstrike mission in the Pacific Ocean, officials said Friday.
U.S. Navy Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Anthony Di Petta, a 24-year-old from Nutley, and two other crew members died in a crash while conducting airstrikes on Sept. 10, 1944, officials said. They were flying aboard a TBM-1C Avenger that took off from the USS Enterprise on a mission on target in Malakal Naval District in the Palau Islands.
Their plane was struck by enemy aircraft fire and crashed into the water on the islands’ coast, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, a federal agency that works to recover military personnel.
At the time, efforts to recover Di Petta’s body were unsuccessful, the agency said. The American Graves Registration Service, an organization that searched for missing service members after the war, deemed Di Petta unrecoverable in 1949.
But the accounting agency and BentProp Project, now known as Project Recover, conducted six investigations between 2003 and 2018 that led to the recovery of the remains. The investigators sent to remains to a laboratory in Hawaii for analysis.
Dental and DNA analysis revealed on Jan. 3 that the remains were of Di Petta and his family was informed prior to the public release of the information on Friday, the agency said.
Officials ask those looking for family and funeral information to contact the Army Casualty Office at 800-892-2490.
©2023 Advance Local Media LLC.
Visit nj.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
