The 24-year-old pilot from Jacksonville was sentenced to 79 years after his death in Papua New Guinea

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Thursday that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Alfred J. Hamwey, a 24-year-old from Jacksonville, who was killed in May during World War II, has been identified.

Hamwey will be buried in Jacksonville on September 12.

In January 1945, Hamwey was assigned to the 360th Service Group, Combat Replacement Training Center, Far East Air Force and deployed to what is now Papua New Guinea. As part of an attempt to neutralize the Japanese threat near Wewak, Territory of New Guinea, Hamwey’s unit attacked enemy defenses at nearby Cape Wom. Hamwey was reported missing on January 20 when friendly forces lost contact with the A-20G Havoc bomber he was flying.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS), the military unit responsible for locating missing American personnel in the Pacific, conducted extensive searches of combat zones and crash sites in New Guinea, concluding its search in late 1948. In June 1949, a panel of AGRS officials concluded that they could not find any remains of Hamwey and the other two crew members. They were deemed unrecoverable.

DPAA’s predecessor organizations began researching and recovering Papua New Guinea military personnel in the early 1980s. In December 2011, an Australian Defence Force officer reported seeing an aircraft crash site in a swamp near Cape Wom, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. A local guide from the nearby village of Wom had discovered the site about six months earlier and reported seeing human remains at the crash. Between July 2015 and May 2016, DPAA staff interviewed locals, collected crash materials and various life support items, as well as possible bone remains. In late 2022, a DPAA underwater recovery team conducted operations at the site and recovered possible human remains, material evidence and other life support equipment. The remains were sent to the DPAA laboratory for review and analysis.

To identify Hamwey’s remains, DPAA scientists used dental and anthropological analyses, as well as physical and circumstantial evidence. Additionally, Armed Forces Medical Examiner System scientists used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Hamwey’s name is inscribed on the walls of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial’s missing persons list, along with others still missing from World War II. A rosette next to his name indicates that he has been found.