WASHINGTON — A Washington County native and Army Air Forces airman killed during World War II has finally been accounted for.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said on Thursday that 2nd Lt. Donald W. Sheppick, 26, of Roscoe, was accounted for on Sept. 20, 2024.
Sheppick was assigned to the 320th Bombardment in Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force in March 1944 and deployed in present-day Papua New Guinea, the DPAA said.
On the morning of March 11, Sheppick was the navigator on a B-24D Liberator bomber named Heaven Can Wait. The bomber left from Nadzab Strip No. 1 in Papua New Guinea as part of a bombing mission against enemy positions on New Guinea’s northern coast.
Witnesses from other aircraft report seeing flames in the bomb bay of Sheppick’s plane that were spreading to the tail. The bomber was seen pitching up before banking left and crashing into the water. Several aircraft searched for survivors in the area but couldn’t find any.
It’s believed that anti-aircraft fire hit Sheppick’s bomber and caused ordnances in the plane to explode, the DPAA says.
After the war, the American Graves Registration Service searched battle areas and crash sites in New Guinea. It concluded the search in late 1948, and in 1950, AGRS officials designated Sheppick and his crew members as unrecoverable.
In October 2017, DPAA partner organization Project Recover found a B-24’s wreckage in Hansa Bay while making sonar scans.
Recovery teams excavated the site between March 9 and April 13, 2023, and found possible remains. The evidence was sent to the DPAA’s laboratory for analysis.
Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence, to identify Sheppick’s remains, the DPAA says. Also, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used Y-chromosome DNA analysis.
Sheppick’s name is listed on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, along with others still missing from WWII, the DPAA says. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Sheppick will be buried in Belle Vernon, though the date has not been set.
For family and funeral information, you can call the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.
Sheppick’s personnel profile is viewable at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000XdlREAS.
Sheppick’s initial ID announcement can be found at this link: Sheppick.
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