Time is running out. The remains of our missing in action (MIAs) who fought and died for our freedom are being worn away by time and elements.
Project Recover Partners With Air Force Heritage Flight To Teach Students On USS Midway
Project Recover is partnering with Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation to teach to 120 students from High Tech High School aboard the USS Midway Museum.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day 2019
National POW/MIA Recognition Day 2019 is a day of observance when Americans take time to recognize and honor more than 82,000 service members who remain missing from past conflicts around the world.
![Project Recover Mission, Palau.]Photo by Harry Parker Photography](https://www.projectrecover.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/mission-palau-reunited-3-1200x631.jpg)
MIA Family Travels To Palau with Project Recover to Uncle’s Crash Site
The MIA family of ARM2c Albert “Bud” Rybarczyk, USNR, traveled to Palau to join Project Recover on their most recent mission. Cindy Gray, Bud’s niece, and her son, Adam, flew to Palau in April 2019. They wanted to get as close as possible to where their Uncle Bud flew his final mission. For the family of Bud Rybarczyk, this was another extraordinary event in a series of miraculous unfoldings over the last couple of years. In 2014, Project Recover located his downed TBM Avenger WWII aircraft in the waters off Palau. Rybarczyk crashed after completing a bombing mission on September 8, 1944. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified Rybarczyk’s remains and accounted for him on August 16, 2017. Four …
Chair and President/CEO Announcement
Project Recover Board of Directors unanimously voted Derek Abbey, Ph.D., to be Project Recover President and CEO and Dan Friedkin as Chair of the Board of Directors.
Project Recover Attends Ceremony For Battle of Peleliu 75th Anniversary
Project Recover participated in a ceremony for the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Peleliu. Cleared Ground Demining hosted the ceremony.
Pat Scannon Nominated for HillVets Hagel Award
Pat Scannon, M.D., Ph.D., President and Co-Founder of Project Recover, has been nominated for the HillVets Hagel Award of 2018. The HillVets Hagel Award is an annual award given to the veteran, service member, or veteran who has given the most in support of veterans in the previous year. HillVets is a D.C.-based non-profit dedicated to helping veterans begin and advance in their second careers and increasing their presence in government, policy, and politics. Each year, HillVets accepts nominations for the HillVets 100; veterans, service members, and their supporters who have contributed the most to our veterans. From those HillVets 100, three are nominated for the HillVets Hagel Award. The winner of the HillVets Hagel Award will be voted on …
2018 Annual Report
Project Recover’s 2018 Annual Report summarizes our global efforts to bring Missing In Action (MIA) American service members home. We are honored to have worked on 26 cases associated with 104 MIAs and 22 POWs. Our work spanned eight countries in the Pacific and European theaters and in the Persian Gulf. We assisted in accounting for four World War II MIAs in 2018 and were honored to attend the funeral of three of them, at the invitation of the families. Project Recover located the stern of the USS Abner Read associated with 70 MIAs in July 2018. We also announced the discovery of the B-24 Heaven Can Wait in Hansa Bay near Papua, New Guinea, in May 2018 and attended …
Relatives of WWII B-24 Crew Gather For Heaven Can Wait ‘Family Reunion’
Heaven Can Wait Family Reunion On March 11, 1944, a World War II B-24 bomber called Heaven Can Wait came under anti-aircraft fire and crashed in the waters off Papua, New Guinea, killing all 11 crew members onboard. Seventy-four years later, on October 13th, 2018, relatives of the crew members gathered for a “family reunion” in Victoria, Minnesota. Using side-scanning sonars, high definition images, and underwater robotic technologies, Project Recover located the B-24 in 2017 under 213 feet of water. The family of Bombardier 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly, Jr, provided extensive research helping Project Recover to locate the aircraft within two weeks on the water. Scott Althaus, lead Kelly family researcher and first cousin once removed to the Bombardier, …
The Search For Remains: Execution of WWII POWs and Innocents in Palau
July 2018 Project Recover spent three weeks searching for the remains from the execution of WWII POWs and innocents in Palau in July 2018. It was a land-based mission with two points of focus: Police Hill and Aimeliik. Pat Scannon, M.D., Ph.D., and founder of The BentProp Project, led the mission. Dan O’Brien, a 20 year veteran of BentProp, co-led the mission. The rest of the volunteer team was Jolie Liston, Ph.D. (archaeologist), Dave Bavencoff (police officer), Sarah Johnson (college sophomore), Glenn Frano (geospatial technician), and Joe Maldangesang, a State Conservation Officer and 20+ year veteran of BentProp, who served the mission as jungle guide and skipper We had key support from within Palau: Richard Madrekevet, an unexploded ordnance specialist, …
