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 the elements. Our nation’s promise “to leave no one behind” will be broken without funding to increase the scope and speed of our work.
We are striving to Keep America’s Promise and bring our MIAs home. The truth is we are working against the odds. We are a team of mostly volunteer professionals. Funded by generous donations, we work together to locate, document and repatriate POW/ MIAs. Our team travels across the world and hack our way through jungles. We dive and document wrecks more than 100+ feet underwater. We work with foreign and our own federal government to repatriate the MIAs we locate.
It is a challenging and audacious mission, but we want to Keep America’s Promise to those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. We do it for their families whose loss is carried through the generations into the present. We do it for the greater good of our communities and country as we gather in love and gratitude to celebrate the homecoming of our heroes.
This video shows the Project Recover team finding a World War II TBM Avenger in 2014. Time is running out. With your donation, we can find more like this one which led to the repatriation and burial of Albert ‘Bud’ Rybarczyk and Ora H.Sharninghouse, Jr..
Our Record of Success
Project Recover started out as a small all-volunteer team searching for WWII aircraft and MIAs in Palau. In 1993, our founder, Pat Scannon, saw the wing of a World War II B-24 Liberator in the jungles of Palau. He knew immediately he wanted to find the rest of the aircraft and, with it, the stories of its 11-man crew.
Today, Project Recover is able to bring MIAs home with generous support from The Friedkin Group and people like you. We work in partnership with SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography and University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment to find and repatriate MIAs around the world.
Since 2013, Project Recover has:
- Conducted 60+ missions in 20 countries and territories.
- Identified and documented 60 aircraft associated with 200+ MIAs
- contributed to 100+ MIAs awaiting repatriating
Every American’s Mission
There is a sense of unity, love, and gratitude when our MIAs are returned home. Men, women, and children line the streets. People are waving flags, holding back tears, and celebrating the return of our heroes.
During those moments, we realize this mission is greater than Project Recover.
Our MIAs bring our American citizens to their feet, out of their home, celebrating our country, freedom, families, and communities. Somewhere in the fiber of humanity, we remember the tremendous price paid for the freedom we enjoy today. We want to be grateful and say thank you together. We want to heal as a nation and move forward united.
This mission is not just our mission, it is every American’s mission. However, time is running out. Help us Keep America’s Promise and bring our MIAs home.
All of it goes toward our mission Keeping America’s Promise and bring our missing service members home. #KeepingAmericasPromise
What would it be like if every American stood together and said thank you? From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
The Project Recover Team
As a retired Air Force enlisted man, I appreciate the efforts of your organization to return our MIAs to their families. I have followed your efforts over the years and am impressed by the dedication and hard work that your team has exhibited. The fact that your efforts have not tailed off over the years, but has grown is impressive.
Hello Jim, greatly appreciate the words of encouragement.
I am the neice of Ora H. Sharninghouse, Jr. (or just Junior as Grandma called him. When we all gathered to honor him in Findlay. Ohio it was absolutely amazing! Family I hadnt seen in 50 years and family I had never met came from all over to honor Uncle. Junior. It was Grandma’s dream that he’d be found one day. Her dream came true.
Project Recovery is incredible. Each and every member we met was just as exciting with their stories about the searches and discoveries. It brought closure in so many ways . We were awed driving out of town in the funeral procession by all the people What this group does for the families of Lost and Missing service people is nothing short of a miracle. We will never have another experience like this and if theres anyone out there that has info on someone who is missing in the war, contact. Project Recovery .The service they proviide is life-changing. Our men who served our Country are NOT forgotten and Project Recovery is trying to bring them home. Thank you so much to everyone involved! Your hero’s to me.
Hello how can I help. Or how can I get in and help find and bring our heros home ? My father is a veteran of the Vietnam war. And I myself is a veteran. I would love to help bring our heros home.
Hello Tim, someone from out team wil be reaching out to you shortly. IN the meantime, read up on these links:
https://www.projectrecover.org/mission-vision-values/
https://www.projectrecover.org/apply/
Blue Skies.
I’ve been researching a MIA USAAF member and his crew…below is the information…
2nd Lt. Robert H. Wirostek was the Navigator aboard the St. Quentin Quail 42-41205 when it ditched on January 2, 1944,due to battle damage. The aircraft ditched off Jab’u Island on the Arno Atoll. Another aircraft from the Squadron dropped emergency rations and reported seeing 6 or 7 crew members hauling equipment from the plane onto the beach. Of the 10 man crew, two were KIA either from the Zero attack or from the ditching. They were buried by the other 8 survivors. The survivors ( one of them was Wirostek) were housed and fed by the Marshallese from ditching till January 16, 1944 when a Japanese Patrol boat appeared and took them prisoner. They were transported to Maloelap Atoll and remained there till Jan. 20, 1944 when they were placed on a Japanese Vessel and , on Jan. 22, 1944 as the ship was entering Kwajalein Lagoon it was attacked by U.S. bombers. One of the prisoners was killed. The remaining 7 prisoners perished between then and Feb. 3, 1944, when U.S. Troops captured the Atoll. They have never been found. From all I’ve been reading they were executed on Kwajalein . I believe there are two other B-24 crews who met the same fate, around the same time. There is a great, but hard to find, book written about the St. Quentin Quail, it is titled The Last Flight of the St. Quentin Quail by Dirk H.R. Spenneman. It a pretty detailed account of the incident. Another book I’m currently reading is Forgotten Raiders of ’42, The Fate of the Marines Left Behind on Makin by Tripp Wiles. Wiles book is about the nine Marine raiders that were captured, transported to Kwajalein and executed. He also mentions the three B-24 Crews who met the same fate…If you haven’t read them I think you would find them very insightful..
Dear Mr. McHugh,
Thank you for reaching out to Project Recover and for the information noted below regarding the St. Quentin Quail. We also want to thank you for your
continued care and research regarding the missing crew.
Please know that Project Recover is currently tracking this case as well. Your interest in the St. Quentin Quail and your email is greatly appreciated.
Respectfully,
Tom Daggett
Project Recover Family Outreach
Thanks Tom..Hopefully you will find these brave men and bring them home….
As my father went down in the Pacific in a B29 during the Korean conflict I understand what a great service you are doing for so many in helping to bring their loved ones home. Bless you
Hello, please refer to these links and get in touch with us at media@ProjectRecover.org
https://www.projectrecover.org/research-your-familys-mia/
https://www.projectrecover.org/family-shares-mia-research
Good morning, I am a US history teacher in Colorado and a retired Army veteran. I have some students who are interested in helping recover our MIA’s. What information can I pass on to them, so that they can be a part of such a great orginazation.
Hello Keith, we are in the field currently, in the Republic of Palau, so will be slow in responding. BUT will get back to you in May.
Thank you for the interest. Please write us at media@ProjectRecover.org with some more details on the students, ages, and the focus they have in history from World War II to current times.
https://www.projectrecover.org/major-paul-a-avolese-accounted-for/
https://www.projectrecover.org/a-6e-wreckage-in-kuwait/
https://www.projectrecover.org/former-us-navy-diver-permanently-disabled-dives-again/