WWII serviceman to be honored after 74 years

PHILADELPHIA, PA, UNITED STATES

06.24.2019

Story by William Costello 

U.S. Army Human Resources Command

FORT KNOX, Ky. — A burial service with full military honors is set for a U.S. serviceman killed in action during World War II. The identity of his remains were unknown until 2019.

U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Howard T. Lurcott, 26, of Philadelphia, will be buried on Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.

Lurcott was a member of the 38th Bombardment Squadron, 30th Bombardment Group, when the B-24J bomber he was piloting crashed into Tarawa lagoon near the Gilbert Islands on Jan.21, 1944.

His unidentified remains were among 94 sets temporarily interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) disinterred his remains and positively identified them using dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.

For more information about this service, contact Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home, 703-998-9200.

For additional information on the efforts to recover Lurcott’s remains and the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil.

• Date Taken: 06.24.2019
• Date Posted: 06.24.2019 08:58
• Story ID: 328875
• Location: PHILADELPHIA, PA, US
• Hometown: PHILADELPHIA, PA, US