On July 10, 1943, almost a year before the Normandy landings, the Allied armed forces launched Operation Husky, landing en masse on the Sicilian coast and beginning the liberation of the European continent. Just then, a young American pilot named Gilbert Haldeen Myers, along with a crew of five, left Tunisia in his B-25 bomber to attack the Sciacca airfield in Sicily.
Shortly after hitting the target, it never returned as it was shot down by Italian anti-aircraft fire and crashed in the village of the island. Authorities reported him missing. Things remained that way for eighty years, until his remains were identified by a team of experts.
Searches at the crash site, located in the south-west of the island, had been carried out without success for four years after the tragedy, in 1947, but the turning point came in 2023, after a new investigation carried out by the "Recovery and Identification of Conflict Casualties" of the British Cranfield University (CRICC) in collaboration with the American government agency specializing in the recovery of prisoners and soldiers missing in war. The team of experts responsible for the recovery consisted of twenty people, each responsible for the search in the vicinity of the impact area, in the Sciacca area.
This was no simple undertaking. Researchers painstakingly examined tons of soil, hoping to recover small artifacts or personal effects useful for identifying crew members. The efforts paid off. In October 2023, the team found fragments of the plane's wreckage and human remains, which were sent to a US laboratory run by the DPAA. Thanks to DNA analysis, in August 2023, they were attributed to Myers.
Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the young soldier was assigned to the 381st Bombardment Squadron, part of the 310th Air Force Group of the United States Air Force (USAAF). On board he performed the duties of co-pilot and was 27 years old at the time of his death.
This is not the only missing person found recently on Italian territory. Thanks to genetic analysis, in April 2023, the DPAA announced the identification of another American soldier, Wing O. Hom, who disappeared in February 1944 near the Cisterna di Latina, a few km south of Rome. Together with Myers and Hom, the number of Stars and Stripes military members involved in World War II and still missing comes to about 72,000. Of these, it is estimated that 39,000 can be detected and identified. (A2 Televizion)
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