ARMY RESERVE IMAGES 

 

 

 

 

Army Reserve Soldiers provide repatriation funeral honors to long-missing World War II hero
Army Reserve Soldiers stationed in New York lent a hand to honor a long-missing casualty of World War II Nov. 19 at St. John Catholic Cemetery in Queens, New York. First Lt. John Joseph Heffernan Jr. served in the 490th Bombardment Squadron with the U.S. Army Air Corps. On Feb. 22, 1944, at age 24, he and six crewmates were lost when their B25G bomber caught fire and crashed into a field in Burma. From January to March 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency conducted a recovery mission at the crash site of Heffernan’s bomber in Burma, now known as Myanmar. On Nov. 2, 2021, the DPAA positively identified Heffernan’s remains through DNA technology, from among those recovered. (U.S. Army photo by Mr. Sal Ottaviano, 99th Readiness Division Public Affairs)