A photo of Navy Ensign Eugene Esmond Mandeberg, who went missing in WWII and had his remains identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in March 2025. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
DETROIT (Tribune News Service) — A naval aviator from Detroit who was one of four Americans shot down on the last day of World War II will finally receive a proper burial next month.
The remains of Ensign Eugene Mandeberg were recently identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in collaboration with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory on March 4.
He will be buried with full military honors at Beth El Memorial Park in Livonia, Mich., on Sept. 14.
It was Aug. 15, 1945, when Mandeberg was killed in the last aerial dogfight of the war. He was piloting one of several F6F Hellcats that had launched from the USS Yorktown on a sweep of airfields northwest of Tokyo with the goal of clearing a path for bombers and torpedo planes.
When the war in the Pacific ended that day, the planes began to return to the carrier. However, the news had not reached enemy forces and the Americans were attacked by 18 to 20 enemy fighters.
The Hellcats turned and met the threat, taking down four in the first pass, and nine total, including one by Mandeberg — making him one of the last Americans to shoot down an enemy plan in the war.
Despite this. four Hellcats failed to return to Yorktown making Mandeberg one of the last Americans to die as the result of enemy action.
His remains were unaccounted for after the war and weren’t recovered until U.S. personnel acquired remains from the Myoho-ji Temple in Yokohama, Japan on March 20, 1946.
The remains were interred as an “Unknown” at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. On Nov. 15, 2019, DPAA exhumed these remains for scientific analysis.
Mandeberg’s posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross reads:
“For extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as pilot of a carrier-based fighter plane. On 15 August 1945 he shot down an enemy plane during an aerial engagement in which the enemy enjoyed great numerical superiority. His courage and airmanship were in keeping with the highest traditions or the United States Naval Service.”
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