The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced recently that U.S. Navy Reserve Lieutenant Jay R. Manown Jr., 26, of Kingwood, West Virginia, killed during World War II, was accounted for May 23, 2024.
In the fall of 1944, Manown was an aviator assigned to Navy Torpedo Squadron 20 (VT-20), USS Enterprise. On Sept. 10, Manown and two other crew members aboard a TBM-1C Avenger (Bureau Number 17018), took off from the USS Enterprise on a mission to conduct air strikes against enemy targets in Malakal Naval District, Palau Islands.
Witnesses from other aircraft in the formation saw Manown’s plane struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire and crash into water near Malakal. There were no indications that Manown or the other crewmembers exited the stricken aircraft prior to the crash, and all efforts to recover their remains were unsuccessful.
Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel, conducted exhaustive searches of battle areas and crash sites in Palau, concluding their search in the summer of 1947. Investigators could not find any evidence of Manown or his aircraft. He was declared non-recoverable July 16, 1949.
From 2003 to 2018, the BentProp Project (now known as Project Recover), with members from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Delaware, and DPAA conducted multiple investigations resulting in the location of a site associated with the incident. Later, in May 2019, Ships of Exploration and Discovery Research (SHIPS), another DPAA partner organization, excavated the site and recovered possible osseous remains and other material evidence.
In Sept. 2021, a subsequent excavation was completed by Project Recover and Legion Undersea Services (Legion), where additional remains and material evidence were recovered. Finally, in July 2023 Project Recover and Legion completed a third excavation at the site, collecting further osseous materials and material evidence. This evidence was all sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
In 2023 the DPAA laboratory scientifically identified the other two crewmen from Manown’s crash site, further supporting the belief that Manown’s remains were also recovered.
To identify Manown’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and circumstantial analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Manown’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Manown will be buried on October 29, 2024, in Kingwood, West Virginia.
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