What Does Closure Feel Like? By Scott Althaus, Project Recover volunteer and cousin of 2Lt. Thomas V. Kelly, Jr. who was killed on March 11, 1944 and repatriated on Memorial Day 2025. Project Recover describes its mission as finding and repatriating Americans Missing In Action (MIA) “to provide recognition and closure for families and the Nation.” That word closure is an important one for describing Project Recover’s impact. I’m in one of the rare MIA family members who has experienced …
July 25, 2025 – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), in partnership with Project Recover and other experts in the field, has publicly announced that they have positively identified the remains of 2nd Lt. Jason K. Goldwater, who had been Missing In Action since 1943. 2nd Lt. Goldwater, a member of the 13th Air Force 42nd Bombardment Group “The Crusaders”, 69th Bombardment Squadron, was a B-25 Navigator. The B-25 took off from Carney Field in Guadalcanal on the morning of July …
For supporters looking to donate to the Texas B-52 Mission Campaign, please visit Texas B-52 Mission fundraising campaign. “Rog 88” was the pilot’s abbreviated, almost casual response to the duty controller’s request for a radio check. On hearing that standard radio-communications exchange over the intercom of his remote radar bomb scoring (RBS) site on the Texas shoreline, the young radar operator broke lock on the massive B-52 bomber he’d been tracking and repositioned the antenna atop his trailer 140° to …
Finding MIAs represents a new beginning for MIA families. Service members whose remains are located decades later bring families and communities together.
Project Recover welcomes Adam Gray, our newest Project Recover team member. Adam was invited to become a team member on our most recent mission to Palau.
![Project Recover Mission, Palau.]Photo by Harry Parker Photography](https://www.projectrecover.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/mission-palau-reunited-3-1200x631.jpg)
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 …
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. …
A Memorial Day Service honoring Lt. Thomas Kelly, a World War II bombardier, shortly after Project Recover announced locating his B-24, Heaven Can Wait.
