The DOD POW/Missing Personnel Office announced April 28 it identified the remains of eight airmen missing in action from World War II: 2nd Lt. Frank J. Arhar, Lloydell, Pa.; 2nd Lt. Jack S.M. Arnett, Charleston, W.Va.; Flight Officer William B. Simpson, Winston-Salem, N.C.; TSgt. Charles T. Goulding, Marlboro, N.Y.; TSgt. Robert J. Stinson, San Bernardino, Calif.; SSgt. Jimmie Doyle, Lamesa, Tex.; SSgt. Leland D. Price, Oakwood, Ohio; and SSgt. Earl E. Yoh, Scott, Ohio. They were part of an 11-member crew on a B-24J Liberator shot down Sept. 1, 1944, during a mission over the Republic of Palau. Other aircraft crews reported seeing the bomber come apart in the air and crash into the sea. Although they also spotted two parachutes, an aerial search was unsuccessful and further recovery in the Japanese-controlled area was impossible. Excavations in 2005, 2007, and 2008 of an underwater site uncovered the remains.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…