PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The remains of a World War II soldier from Oregon who went missing in the final weeks of the Guadalcanal campaign have been positively identified 76 years after he was listed as missing in action.
Skeletal remains recovered two years ago on the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific are those of Pfc. Dale W. Ross.
Ross was listed as MIA in 1943 after being last seen in an area that saw heavy fighting around a Japanese-held hilltop.
A search was conducted, but fellow soldiers were unable to locate his remains. He was 22 at the time.
In 2017, a WWII researcher named Donna Esposito was traveling in the Solomon Islands when a local man said his neighbor’s son had found dog tags and remains believed to be those of an American soldier. The remains were eventually turned over to the Pentagon.
The test results, released publicly on April 18, positively identified the remains as those of Ross.