WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army Air Forces gunner whose plane crashed over Japan during World War II and missing for 80 years, has been identified. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Tuesday that Sgt. Leonard J. McNeill, 27, was accounted for on Oct. 9, 2025, but details are being shared now because his family has received a full briefing.
In the spring of April 1945, McNeill, an Orlando native, served as a tail gunner aboard a Boeing B-29 “Superfortress” bomber assigned to 881st Bombardment Squadron, 500th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy). During a bombing mission against the Nakajima Aircraft Engine Plant in Musashino City, Japan, the aircraft crashed, according to news release from the agency.
The circumstances leading to the crash are unclear. However, the unit’s records indicate that aircrews on the same mission witnessed one plane explode near the target area before falling to the ground, the news release states.
McNeill survived the crash but was held as a prisoner of war. He perished in the Tokyo Military Prison during a fire on May 26, 1945, the news release states.
Following World War II, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) investigated and recovered missing American personnel in the Pacific Theater. The AGRS recovered 65 sets of remains from the Tokyo Military Prison but could not identify any as Sgt. McNeill, the news release states.
After the AGRS identification efforts concluded, U.S. forces interred 39 “Unknowns” associated with the Tokyo Military Prison in Fort McKinley Cemetery, a site now known as the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, the news release states.
In March and April 2022, the DPAA exhumed the 39 Unknowns linked to the Tokyo Prison Fire and the remains were set to the DPAA laboratory for analysis and comparison to associated casualties, the news release states. Scientists from the DPAA used anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence to identify Sgt. McNeill’s remains.
Scientist from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA analysis, mitochondrial genome sequencing data and nuclear single nucleotide polymorphism testing.
Sgt. McNeill’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Honolulu. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.
He will be buried Nov. 11, 2026, in his hometown of Orlando, the news release states.
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