WWII Williamsport airman identified, will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery

For decades Dale Danneker knew very little about his uncle who was killed in action during World War II.

"The family story was that he was shot down. Well, I grew up believing it was over the English Channel," said Danneker, who lives in DuBois.

Only in recent years would he and other relatives learn that U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. John H. Danneker, a 19-year-old airman from Williamsport, died when his B-24 “Liberator” bomber crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark after colliding with another plane.

Danneker's remains were formally identified last year and will be returning to the United States for burial, the Defense Department POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced last week.

His nephew and other family members will travel to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia this summer for the ceremony.

Air Force Historical Support Division

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Jack's story

Danneker — Jack to his family — was inducted into what was then called the Army Air Corps, or Army Air Forces, three weeks before graduation at Williamsport High School in 1943, according to newspaper clippings provided by DPAA.

The son of Charles and Mary Danneker of Cherry Street in Williamsport, Danneker was one of four siblings serving in the military. He trained at camps in Mississippi, Colorado, Florida and Arizona before being shipped to England in April 1944.

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

"The family received two short letters after his arrival in England, the latest being mailed May 31 and being received June 16," a newspaper report stated.

He crashed four days later.

On June 20, 1944, Danneker was the left waist gunner on a Liberator flying a bombing mission against enemy facilities in Pölitz, Germany, according to a Defense Department account.

Pölitz — now under Polish jurisdiction and known as Police — was the site of a synthetic oil plant that was bombed multiple times by allied forces during the war. Dozens of planes headed for the target that morning.

"The sky must have been dark, like with carrier pigeons," Dale Danneker said.

U.S. Air Force photo

The B-24 was the most numerous of all allied bombers produced during the war. The model also had a deadly reputation: Airmen called it "The Flying Coffin" because of design flaws, including a single exit, hindering crews' ability to parachute out of a stricken plane.

Tragedy struck during the Pölitz raid. Danneker's bomber "collided with another plane in the formation and went spinning down" into the Baltic Sea near Langeland Island, Denmark, the DPAA account states.

Only two men out of a crew of 10 survived. They were taken prisoner, and eventually returned to U.S. custody.

"The pilot and co-pilot of Danneker’s aircraft were able to bail out and survived, but all evidence points to the rest of the crew being killed in the crash," the account states.

"The other eight crew members could not be accounted for at the time or immediately after the war," the department said.

'I heard very little about it'

Dale Danneker was born two months after his uncle's crash.

He said the tragedy wasn't discussed much in the family, particularly after his grandmother passed away — online burial records show that Mary Danneker died in 1951, and her husband died in 1968.

"That's about the last anybody probably would have talked about it that I knew," Danneker said.

"I heard very, very little about it. My dad's family was scattered pretty far and wide, and I didn't see them very often after I was 5 or 6 years old, really," he said. "I would see a couple of uncles and a couple aunts periodically, like once every three years or something — you know, not very often."

What Dale Danneker later learned about his uncle's death came from mimeographed copies of old military documents.

Danneker was initially declared missing after the crash. The U.S. War Department issued a "Finding of Death" on June 21, 1945. An undated news clipping on the DPAA site reports that a memorial Mass was said at St. Boniface Church in Williamsport.

In early 1948, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, investigated the crash, DPAA said, but was unable to find any of the missing crewmen.

"Over the next couple of years, the AGRC also assessed unidentified remains that washed ashore in the area where Danneker’s aircraft crashed but were not able to identify any of the crew," DPAA's report said.

Danneker was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950.

'This all came out of the blue'

With Danneker's parents and siblings deceased and recovery efforts long since ended, his story seemed all but forgotten by the 21st century.

Then Dale Danneker unexpectedly heard from DPAA about five years ago.

"They called because they wanted DNA from the living relatives," he said. "This all came out of the blue."

In 2019, Danish recreational divers had alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the area where Danneker’s aircraft crashed, his nephew learned.

They also had recovered a .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number that partially matched the guns on Danneker’s aircraft.

After the area was cleared of unexploded ordnance, DPAA, University of Delaware and the Royal Danish Navy, returned to conduct an underwater survey in August 2021, DPAA's report states. That survey found possible human remains and enough evidence to recommend the site for an archaeological excavation.

Further excavation and recovery operations in September and October 2022 uncovered remains, material evidence and the ID tags of two crew members. Further searches in 2023 and 2024 uncovered more material evidence and possible remains.

All of the evidence was turned over to DPAA's lab for analysis. DPAA, meanwhile, sought DNA from Dale Danneker and other family members.

"I have a brother, and there are several other cousins, and the cousins have some children, but there are no (living) brothers and sisters of Uncle Jack," said Danneker, the oldest of the surviving relatives.

But that DNA gave the researchers the critical piece they needed.

"They found human remains, which they tested and verified as as Uncle Jack," Dale Danneker said.

DPAA scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, while scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome and autosomal DNA analysis on the remains.

"Laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available allowed Danneker to be identified from the remains recovered at the crash site," DPAA wrote.

Considered missing in action for 80 years, Staff Sgt. John H. Danneker was declared formally accounted for on Dec. 10, 2024.

"I gotta tell you how wonderful the armed services have been about this," Dale Danneker said of DPAA's efforts. "It's just a wonderful service."

A hero's homecoming

Danneker's remains will be laid to rest in August at Arlington. His nephew and other relatives plan to be there.

"Like I say, all the rest of his family is dead now, and we have some cousins, so I think there won't be very many people attending the service," Dale Danneker said.

"It will be my brother and I, and my cousin Charles and maybe one or two of his children. There just aren't that many (survivors), and it's been difficult to track them down, he added.

Dale Danneker believes his late father and other deceased relatives would feel the same way he does about the ending to his uncle's story.

"It just seemed astounding that after 80 years he could be recovered at all," he said. "And I thought it was a really good thing he could be honored the way he deserves to be."