LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- The remains of a Tuskegee pilot have been identified, 79 years after he went missing during World War II, according to the Defense Department.
Second Lt. Fred L. Brewer Jr. was piloting a single-seat P-51C Mustang nicknamed “Traveling Light” in October 1944 when he went missing.
According to the report, the North Carolina native was one of 57 fighters on a bomber escort mission over enemy targets in Regensburg, Germany.
READ ALSO: Florida Police Release Images Of Multiple Suitcases Found With Unidentified Woman’s Remains
Though none of the fighters could locate their aircraft or the target, forty-seven fighters were able to return to the base. Brewer was not among them, according to the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
In 2011, researchers examined the remains and found an Italian Police report noting that they were recovered from a crashed fighter jet the same day that Brewer vanished.
The remains were exhumed in June 2022 and sent to a DPAA lab, which led to the positive identification of Brewer using DNA.
Following Brewer’s identification, his cousin, Robena Harrison, said: “I remember how devastating it was when they notified my family, my aunt and uncle, that he was missing.
“It just left a void within our family,’ Harrison told local media. ‘My aunt, who was his mother, Janie, she never, ever recovered from that,” Harrison said.
