U.S. Army Air Forces pilot 2nd Lt. Gilbert A. Rauh was killed in action in 1943. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
U.S. Army Air Forces pilot 2nd Lt. Gilbert A. Rauh, who was killed in action in 1943, will be interred Monday at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., according to a news release from U.S. Army Human Resources Command.
Rauh will receive full military honors.
Rauh was a member of the 436th Bombardment Squadron, 7th Bombardment Group. On Dec. 1, 1943, he was the pilot of a B-24J “Liberator” while on a bombing mission from Panagarh, India, to the Insein Railroad Yard north of Rangoon, Burma. After reaching the target, Rauh’s plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire, causing the left wing to burst into flames. The remains of the crew were not recovered or identified after the war, and they were all later declared Missing in Action.
Japanese forces had instructed local villagers to bury the remains in two large graves.
The American Grave Registration Service recovered the remains of what was believed to be eight individuals in 1947, but they could not be scientifically identified at the time. They interred as Unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii, also known as the Punchbowl.
Rauh was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on Aug. 23, 2024.
His name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with the others missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.