March 27 (UPI) -- Forensics investigators identified the remains of U.S. Army Air Forces Cpl. Glenn Hodak nearly 80 years after his B-29 bomber was shot down over Tokyo in March 1945.
Hodak, 23, was from Cambridge Springs, Pa., and a gunner aboard a B-29 Superfortress bomber when it was shot down during a mission over Tokyo, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Wednesday.
Hodak served in the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group and was listed as missing in action after his crew's B-29 went down.
Post-war investigators learned Hodak survived the bombing mission and was held as a prisoner of war until dying in a Tokyo Military Prison fire on May 26, 1945.
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The U.S. Army Air Force caused the fire when it launched "Operation Meetinghouse" that sent more than 275 B-29 bombers over Tokyo to drop 1,667 tons of incendiary bombs during the largest firebombing mission in the Pacific Theater on March 9, 1945.
The raid used 500-pound cluster bombs, each of which contained 38 M69 bomblets containing napalm that was ignited by white phosphorus, Miitary.com reported.
The air raid caused the greatest amount of destruction of any bombing raid during World War II, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the war.
"The chosen areas were saturated, [and] 15 square miles of Tokyo's most densely populated area were burned to the ground" by the resulting firestorm, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey on the Pacific War reported in 1946.
The raid killed between 80,000 and 100,000 Japanese people and many POWs, including Hodak.
The U.S. Army Air Forces repeated similar raids over Tokyo and other heavily populated Japanese cities.
"If we lose, we'll be tried as war criminals," Commanding officer Gen. Curtis LeMay said as the Japan's civilian death toll mounted due to the repeated fire bombings.
Hodak's remains were not immediately recovered or identified following Japan's surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, but American Graves Registration Service personnel searched for and recovered the remains of U.S. service members throughout the Pacific Theater.
AGRS personnel recovered 62 sets of remains from the Tokyo Military Prison in early 1946 and identified the remains of 25 service members.
Hodak's remains were among 39 sets that were unidentified and eventually interred among unknowns at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in 2022 disinterred the remains of the 39 unknowns and subjected them to modern forensics testing, including DNA analysis.
Investigators also examined dental records and prison reports compiled in Japan and from the memories of other U.S. military personnel who were transferred from the Tokyo Military Prison prior to its destruction.
Hodak's remains were positively identified on Sept. 25, 2024, but the announcement of the discovery was delayed pending notification and receipt of his remains by his family.
Hodak will be buried in Spring Creek, Pa., in May and is one of two service members whose remains were identified since 2022, CBS News reported.
