A Chapter Closed

The remains of 1st Lt. Shannon Estill, a P-38J pilot missing in action from World War II, were buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery on 10 October. Estill's aircraft was struck by anti-aircraft fire 13 April 1945 over eastern Germany. Because the location of the crash was within the Russian-controlled sector of occupied Germany, the remains could not be recovered immediately after the war. A team from the Department of Defense's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command investigated a crash site near Elsnig in eastern Germany in 2003. Two years later, another JPAC team excavated the crash site and recovered the remains. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used site evidence and mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains.