A Pentagon release on May 11 confirmed an earlier news report that DOD analysts had identified the remains of an airman missing in action from World War II as those of Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Archibald Kelly of Detroit. Kelly was the navigator on a B-24J Liberator on a mission to bomb oil fields at Ploesti, Romania, struck by enemy fire on its return to its base in Italy. Eight of the 10 crewmen bailed out before the bomber crashed about 430 miles southwest of Ploesti. The rear gunner had been killed on the aircraft and his body recovered later. Another crewman saw Kelly bail out, but Kelly struck a rock cliff face. In 2005, specialists from the DOD POW/Missing Personnel Office interviewed residents of Croatia near the crash site and found one who recalled villagers buried an airman who had hit the rocks. In 2006, a DOD team excavated the site.
Retired Col. Carlyle "Smitty" Harris, known for introducing the "tap code" by which American POWs in North Vietnam could surreptitiously communicate with one another, died July 6. Harris was brutalized by the North Vietnamese over almost eight years of captivity.