The family of an Oregon soldier declared unaccounted for during World War II is getting ready to bury his remains, which were recently identified.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week it had identified the remains of Staff Sgt. Jack Coy, and that he will be buried in Oregon on a future date.
Sergeant Coy, a native of what then was Oregon Township, was a tail gunner in a B-24 Liberator that was shot down Feb. 24, 1944, over Bad Salzungen, Germany, exploding in mid-air, according to the agency.
Sergeant Coy’s remains were identified from a DNA sample submitted by Shawnelle Johns of Oregon and her late mother, Janet Smith, Sergeant Coy’s niece, three or four years after the Defense Department contacted her mother as one of his closest living relatives. Mrs. Smith died in 2020 at age 79.
“She told me about it and I’m like, ‘Mom, we need to do this…. We need to know. We need to bring him home,” Mrs. Johns said, adding that she was overwhelmed with emotion when she learned about the identification just days ago.