FORT KNOX, Ky. — After more than a half-century of being missing, the remains of a World War II fighter pilot will finally be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in September.
The ceremony will be the end of a remarkable search for a St. Petersburg native who was just 21 years old when he went missing during World War II.
In 1945, U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Newell F. Mills Jr. flew a P-51D Mustang fighter to escort a formation of B-24 Liberator bombers to Geesthact, Germany. Once the group encountered German fighters, none of them, including Mills, returned to base.
The War Department issued a "Finding of Death" for Mills a year later in 1946, and in 1949, believed he had been buried as an unidentified soldier in Ardennes American Cemetary. His family had him permanently buried based on circumstantial evidence.
But, the mystery of Mills' disappearance came back to light more than 50 years later when an investigation that started in 2004 revealed that the remains believed to be the lost pilot had been misidentified.
In 2012, German researchers investigated a plane crash near the area where Mills' wingman had been discovered. Witnesses told the researchers of a large air battle in April 1945.
An American airman parachuted into a river but had died from a gunshot wound by the time locals recovered him. A witness shown a photo of Mills believed that he was the same man pulled from the river.
After investigating the case, historians with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency were led to an unknown soldier buried at Ardennes, the strongest historical candidate for Mills.
The body was exhumed in July 2021 and transferred to Nebraska for analysis. In March 2022, Mills was finally accounted for when his remains were identified through dental, anthropological and DNA analysis.
Mills will have a rosette placed next to his name on the "Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes" to symbolize that after all these years, he had finally been found.
He will be given a final burial at Arlington National Cemetery on September 13.
