Project Recover finds missing service members through underwater missions

More than 80,000 military personnel reported missing in action from previous conflicts remain missing. However, with research and new technologies, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency estimates that the remains of 38,000 fallen veterans could be recovered. The nonprofit Project Recover is working with the agency to bring some of those service members home through complex underwater missions.

“This is a great American story here,” said former Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet. “Our work is to use technology, such as underwater drones and scuba diving equipment, to find the platforms on which these members perished, then perform DNA analysis to detect and recover their remains and match them to those who have disappeared.”

Members of Project Recover stand with folded American flags during a ceremony honoring fallen World War II airmen. (Project recovery)

Gallaudet is also a member of the Project Recover advisory board. The group was founded by Dr. Patrick Scannon. The idea came to him in 1993, when he was visiting the Palau Islands with his wife and discovered a plane shot down during World War II.

“That 65-foot wing basically changed my life,” Scannon said in an interview with GoPro.

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Project Recover teams have located dozens of aircraft sites around the Palau Islands associated with nearly 100 service members missing in action.

“Recovery is difficult. You have to find the planes or ships first,” Gallaudet said. “And then we have to determine if there are any remains there, and then identify them, match them to the military.”

In 1944, American authorities determined that the Palau Islands were a crucial part of a larger mission to liberate the Philippines. The effort to capture Peleliu Island proved costly for the United States. Located about 500 miles from the Philippines, the island was home to an airfield that U.S. officials said could be used to launch an attack during their larger mission. More than 10,000 Japanese soldiers were stationed in Peleliu at the time.

US Air Force B-52 bombers are parked at a military airfield. (B-52 bomber shot down)

The battle was only expected to last a few days, but ultimately lasted 74 days. The United States began its bombardment, dropping more than 600 tons of bombs, but the Marines had little intelligence about enemy positions. Japanese troops hid in coral caves and mineshafts around the islands. Initial air attacks had little impact unless pilots flew dangerously close to the island.

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At Peleliu, 1,800 Americans were killed in action and more than 8,000 were wounded or missing. Almost all of Japan’s 10,000 troops were killed in action. In the Palau Islands, the United States conducted nine major air campaigns during which approximately 200 aircraft were lost.

Project Recover is now working to bring some of those service members home.

“There were three service members on the plane that perished, a lieutenant and then two enlisted crew members. And over the last few years, we’ve been able to recover the remains of all three. And we didn’t identify them all at once. It took forensics and DNA technology. But the last one was finally identified,” Gallaudet said.

Lieutenant Jay Manown, AOM1c Anthony Di Petta, and ARM1c Wilbur Mitts took off on a bombing mission in September 1944. They were conducting pre-invasion strikes in preparation for the invasion of Peleliu when their aircraft went out of control and crashed into the surrounding waters.

“The plane was hit by enemy fire and it caught fire,” Di Petta’s niece, Suzanne Nakamura, said in an interview with Media Evolve.

Project Recover located the plane in 2015. After more than a dozen dives to investigate the wreckage, teams began removing the remains of the three servicemen. Lieutenant Manown was the last to be repatriated.

“We held the ceremony in his hometown in West Virginia, and the loved ones of all three service members came to this final ceremony,” Gallaudet said.

The men’s three nieces became particularly close.

A diver examines wreckage during an underwater mission to locate and recover missing U.S. service members. (Project recovery)

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“We communicated beautifully and became friends through this experience and it’s almost like a sisterhood,” Manown’s niece, Rebecca Sheets, said in an interview with Media Evolve.

“We’ve talked so much on the phone and we feel so close,” Mitt’s niece, Diana Ward, told Media Evolve. “It’s just a joy to meet in person, and we just share the emotion that we felt about bringing our uncles home.”

The three women also shared their feelings about how their grandmothers, or Manown’s mothers, Di Petta and Mitts, may have felt about their sons finally coming home.

“We have a connection because our uncles were involved not only in defending the freedom of the United States, but also as human beings who fought and died together,” Nakamura said.

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Including its work in Palau, Project Recover has completed more than 100 missions in 25 countries. They repatriated 24 missing Americans and located more than 200 missing in action pending further recovery efforts. The group is raising money for a mission it hopes to complete in 2026: the search for a B-52 plane that went missing in a training accident.

“It’s off the coast of Texas. We haven’t found the plane yet. And of those eight service members, they all had families,” Gallaudet said. “There are approximately 32 members of this family still alive today who want answers to what happened to their loved ones.”

In addition to the more than 80,000 military personnel missing, 20,000 are missing following training accidents. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency is not authorized to allocate funds for a search effort for the eight men who went missing with their B-52 because the crash occurred during a non-conflict training accident.

“Having not yet found the wreckage, we do not know what the cause of the failure was. So our goal is to find this wreckage, then recover the remains and repatriate them to the families,” Gallaudet said.

Members of the US Air Force B-52 crew pose for a group photo. (B-52 bomber shot down)

The Air Force bomber was on a routine training mission in February 1968 when it disappeared from radar and radio contact. The Air Force immediately conducted an extensive nine-day search of the flight path, but found no trace of the bomber. As the military completed its search, determining that the plane had crashed in an unknown location, three pieces of debris washed up in Corpus Christi, Texas.

“This B-52 off the coast of Texas hasn’t been located yet, but we think we know where the area is. We’re going to find it,” Gallaudet said.

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More than $300,000 has already been raised for the mission. Project Recover estimates another $200,000 is needed to search for the eight men. If the organization is successful in locating the remains, the Defense POW/MIA accounting agency will be able to allocate resources for a recovery effort.

You can learn more about Project Recover and the missing B-52 and donate to help with research on Project Recover. website.