U.S. Navy Lieutenant Jay R. Manown, Jr. (center, pictured with his parents) was listed as missing in action after his plane crashed on Sept. 10, 1944. His remains were located, identified and repatriated in 2024 thanks to Project Recover, a nonprofit that includes members from the University of Delaware.

Remembrance and recovery

Article by Matthew Trunfio and Lauren Bradford Photos courtesy of Joann Gabel, Mark Moline, Hunter Brown and Project Recover November 08, 2024

UD, Project Recover help bring home lost WWII aviator

On the morning of Sept. 10, 1944, as World War II entered its sixth year, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Jay R. Manown, Jr. piloted his TBM-1c Avenger away from the USS Enterprise, carrying himself and two crew members on a mission to conduct airstrikes on enemy targets in Palau. They never returned to the aircraft carrier. Struck by enemy fire, Manown’s plane was last seen spiraling into Malakal Harbor in the western Pacific Ocean.

Now, after decades of exhaustive searches, Manown’s remains have been located, identified and returned to his family, thanks in part to technology from the University of Delaware and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the tireless work of Project Recover.

Searching for Manown

Manown, who was from Kingwood, West Virginia, was only 26 years old when his plane was shot down. One of nearly 80,000 American soldiers listed as missing in action (MIA) following WWII, his legacy lives on in his family, who remember hearing bits and pieces of his story even though they were born after his disappearance.

“A lot of people felt the loss of him so greatly. He was so young and didn’t really get to live his life,” said Joann Gabel, Manown’s second cousin. “He is remembered as somebody that had a lot of courage and a lot of potential.”

Autonomous underwater vehicles were used to locate Lieutenant Jay Manown’s plane in the waters off Palau. These specialized robotics are equipped with sonar to map the seafloor and magnetometers to search for iron-based materials like those found in aircraft remnants.

After searches in the years following his disappearance proved fruitless, Manown was declared non-recoverable, and his MIA status remained unchanged for nearly 80 years. The downed Avenger was discovered by Project Recover and identified as Manown’s aircraft in 2015. The two crew members, Anthony Di Petta and Wilbur Mitts, were recovered and identified following missions in 2019 and 2021.

In 2023, Project Recover returned to the wreckage site to continue the search, recovering possible human remains. In 2024, after DNA testing confirmed a family match, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) declared that they had officially accounted for Manown.

Project Recover, a nonprofit organization that seeks to find and repatriate American soldiers missing in action, has located and identified more than 20 service members and 60 aircraft since its inception in 1993. The team includes two members from the University of Delaware: Mark Moline, co-founder of Project Recover and Maxwell P. and Mildred H. Harrington Professor of Marine Studies, and Colin Colbourn, lead historian for Project Recover and adjunct professor in the history department.

Project Recover member Flip Colmer (left) and UD’s Mark Moline located the bomb bay of Lieutenant Jay Manown’s Avenger in Palau in 2015. Manown’s crew members Di Petta and Mitts were repatriated in 2019 and 2021. Manown was repatriated in 2024.

Hunting historical information

As the lead historian, Colbourn sifts through historical records and archives to help the team determine where to begin each search. UD's extensive library and archival resources help him access a wide range of historical information, making his searches more effective.

Colbourn’s mission to understand what happened to American soldiers has led him to interviews with locals around the world. Leads from history books can’t always provide the complete picture, and, on multiple occasions, he has encountered locals who possess knowledge of airplane crash sites that have been passed down orally through generations.

Because of his direct interaction with locals of other communities, Colbourn approaches all of his interactions with respect.

“What we are doing is a scientific mission, and it's a historical mission,” said Colbourn. “But it also is a humanitarian mission and a diplomatic mission. We’re representing the United States, and we are there humbly asking them to pass on some of their stories.”

Robots and recovered remains

Once potential wreckage sites have been identified, Project Recover begins extensive work on the ground, including using special robotics to search for aircraft remnants. Moline, a professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, brings his robotics expertise to this portion of the mission.

As part of the exhaustive recovery effort for Manown, his crew members and his aircraft, Project Recover divers vacuumed the seafloor.

Because the wreckage is often submerged in water, Moline uses autonomous underwater robots that have been honed and improved over the years, thanks to UD research and funding. Equipped with sonar to map the seafloor and magnetometers to search for iron-based materials — like aircraft remnants — this robotic technology is incredibly powerful in identifying man-made objects and locating remnants that may otherwise go unnoticed by human dive teams.

After locating potential remains, Project Recover sends information to the U.S. government to complete forensic analysis. Recovered remains are first sent to Hawaii for DNA extraction, with analysis and identification completed at Dover Air Force Base. The entire process can take one to ten years before the remains are returned to family members.

A final resting place

Manown was laid to rest with full military honors including a Navy F-18 flyover on Oct. 29, 2024, in Kingwood, West Virginia. Both Moline and Colbourn were in attendance.

While there are many parts of the job that they look forward to, Moline and Colbourn say they do it for the people and the families.

Listed as missing in action for 80 years, Lt. Jay Manown was finally returned to his family and laid to rest in Kingwood, West Virginia, with his ancestors.

“The best part about this is when you go to these interments, and you meet the families and know that what you are doing is helping these families heal from a sort of scar that they have had for all these years,” said Moline. “I’m a scientist, and, as a scientist, you don’t always get a chance to connect with people. What Project Recover has allowed me to do is to give human meaning to the work that I do.”

“Telling a family that you have located a lost loved one after eighty years,” echoed Colbourn. “There is nothing in the world that feels like that.”

For Gabel, bringing Manown home has brought a sense of peace and closure. She recently visited his long-empty grave site, where he is now laid to rest among his ancestors.

The poster for Lt. Manown flies at the entrance to Maplewood Cemetery in Kingwood, West Virginia, where he was laid to rest on Oct. 29, 2024.

“It’s a very, very wonderful thing for everyone. I tend to be a spiritual person. I believe in an afterlife, and I know he’s been with his mom and dad, and they’ve been reunited with him. That much I know in my own mind,” Gabel said. “But the fact that his remains will come back and be where they should be? I know that everyone is very happy.”

Though Manown’s family never expected his return, Gabel encourages other families to remain hopeful in their search for lost loved ones.

“I never thought it would happen. I really never thought that he would be recovered. That’s why it’s just amazing to me. They’re such angels to do what they did,” Gabel said of the Project Recover team and everyone involved in the search for Manown. “I can say without a doubt to others that there are good people out there who are still trying to help and find them, and I think that’s fantastic.”

About Project Recover

Project Recover is a collaborative effort to enlist 21st-century science and technology in a quest to find and repatriate Americans missing in action since World War II, in order to provide recognition and closure for families and the nation. For more information, visit projectrecover.org.