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Logo of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, headquartered in Hawaii.

Logo of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, headquartered in Hawaii. (JPAC)

An underwater recovery team from the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command arrived off the coast of France this week to search for an American servicemember missing since World War II.

The 25-person team of JPAC specialists, civilian mariners from the USNS Grapple and divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two will excavate off the coast of Calvi, Corsica, for an American lost in a B-17 crash in February 1944, according to a JPAC statement Tuesday.

JPAC officials did not identify the servicemember they will be seeking during the five-week operation.

JPAC, based out of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, has asked the local community to limit traffic in the ship's vicinity, the statement said. The area will be marked with buoys to maintain the integrity of the site and keep divers safe.

JPAC has about 400 joint military and civilian personnel who perform investigations to locate the approximate 83,000 Americans still missing from past conflicts

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