MISSING IN ACTION

On September 1, 1944, Doyle was one of eleven men on board a B-24J Liberator bomber that was shot down while on a bombing reconnaissance mission of enemy targets near the town of Koror, Republic of Palau. Three of the crewmen parachuted from the aircraft and died while prisoners of the Japanese, and the other eight crewmen, including Doyle, went down with the plane into the sea between Babelthuap and Koror islands.

In 2004, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team conducted an underwater investigation of aircraft wreckage submerged off the southern coast of Babelthuap Island. Between 2005 and 2008, combined JPAC/U.S. Navy Mobile Diving and Salvage teams excavated the site three times and recovered human remains and material evidence, including machine guns bearing serial numbers that match those of guns mounted on this plane, and identification media for three of the crewmen on the plane.

Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Doyle's remains.

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• military
• aviation