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A World War II sailor who died the day the war officially ended has been accounted for, military officials said Monday.
U.S. Navy Reserve Ensign Eugene E. Mandeberg, 23, of Detroit, was a member of Fighting Squadron 88 aboard the USS Yorktown during the summer of 1945, . He enlisted in 1941 and first went overseas in February 1944, according to a news clipping shared by the DPAA.
His formation engaged with enemy fighter planes over Tokyo while returning from a mission in Japan on Aug. 15, on , the DPAA said. Four of the six aircraft in the formation did not return to the USS Yorktown. A news clipping shared by the DPAA said that the formation was met by 20 Japanese planes.
Mandeberg was listed as missing in action after he failed to return. His family held out hope that he might have survived and could have been on a Pacific Island, according to a news clipping shared by the DPAA.
On March 20, 1946, U.S. personnel retrieved the remains of an unknown American servicemember from a temple in Yokohama, Japan, the DPAA said. The remains, known as X-341 Yokohama #1, were believed to belong to an American pilot who had crashed there on Aug. 15, 1945. The wreckage of the plane was linked to the USS Yorktown, but the remains could not be positively identified. The remains were interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as a "World War II Unknown."
In 2019, the DPAA exhumed those remains, and scientists used dental and anthropological studies, as well as , to identify them as Mandeberg's.
Mandeberg's surviving family members were briefed on his identification and recovery in March 2025. He was buried in Livonia, Michigan, on Sept. 14.
