19-year-old Pennsylvania airman accounted for from World War II
According to the DPAA, U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. John H. Danneker, 19, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, who was killed in World War II, was accounted for on December 10, 2024.
The DPAA says Danneker was assigned to the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force, in the European Theater in June of 1944.
Danneker was assigned to be the left waist gunner onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber. On June 20, 1944, Danneker went missing in action when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark after colliding with another B-24 in the same formation.
The pilot and co-pilot of Danneker's aircraft were able to survive, but evidence pointed to the rest of the crew being killed in the crash. The American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), which was responsible for searching for and recovering fallen American soldiers, investigated the crash but was unable to find any of the missing crewmen. Danneker was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950, per the DPAA.
In 2019, Danish divers encountered a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Danneker's aircraft crashed. The divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy, who found possible human remains and enough evidence to recommend archeological excavation.
Archaeologists, divers, and volunteers from Project Recover returned to the site and found extensive evidence, including remains and ID tags of two crew members. The evidence was turned over to the Danish authorities and the DPAA laboratory.
Scientists from DPAA used dental DNA and anthropological analysis to identify Danneker among the wreckage.
Danneker's name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Danneker will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in August 2025. Danneker's family was recently briefed on his identification.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
10 hours ago
- USA Today
What to know about Camp Mystic, as death toll from girls' camp reaches 27
At least 27 campers and counselors from an all-girls summer camp in central Texas died in the devastating flash floods that swept through central Texas on July 4, the camp said in a statement on its website. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," read a statement on the Camp Mystic website. "We are praying for them constantly." It's unclear how many of the 27 fatal victims were children. At least 88 people have died in the flooding, according to latest tallies on Monday, July 7. When the flash flood struck early on Friday, about 700 children were in residence at Camp Mystic, according to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. The camp lies on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Heavy rains hit central-west Texas early Friday, leading to flash flooding in the area around the camp as the river surged nearly 30 feet in less than an hour, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Here's what we know about the summer camp for girls, as crews continue to pick through the wreckage more than three days after the disaster struck. Live updates: 27 girls, counselors at Camp Mystic killed in Texas floods Where is Camp Mystic in Texas? Camp Mystic for Girls is in Texas, about 6 miles south of Hunt, Texas, in Kerr County. That's within Texas Hill Country, an 11-million-acre region of central-west Texas spanning several counties and cities, named for its grassy and rolling hills, and known as an especially flood-prone area. The original camp sits alongside the Guadalupe River, and a second camp nearby opened in 2020 is near Cypress Lake. Both are bisected by Cypress Creek. Texas flood disaster: As death toll hits at least 80, here's ways to help What is Camp Mystic? A centuries-old camp for girls. The nondenominational Christian camp for girls was founded in 1926 by Edward "Doc" Stewart, who was a coach at the University of Texas, according to the camp's website. Except for a short period during during World War II when it served as a "rehabilitation and recovery camp" for veterans, it has been in operation ever since. The camp, described on its website as "nestled among cypress, live oak and pecan trees," operates three sessions each summer, offering classic summer camp activities including archery, canoeing, arts and crafts, swimming and horseback riding. The girls can also participate in cooking, dance, basketball, lacrosse, soccer and yoga, and religious activities such as Bible studies, Saturday evening Catholic Mass and Sunday morning devotionals along the river. "Campers and counselors join together to sing songs, listen to scripture, discover ways to grow spiritually, and learn to apply these lessons to their daily life at camp and back home," according to the site. The camp has a storied history in the state, and has hosted girls from some of Texas' most famous political families. The daughters of three former Texas governors summered at the camp, according to Texas Monthly, and three generations of girls in former President Lyndon B. Johnson's family also attended, the Texas Tribune has reported. A current Republican Congressman announced Saturday two of his daughters were among those evacuated over the weekend, and former First Lady Laura Bush was once a camp counselor there. Jenna Bush Hager speaks about Mystic: 'Texas camps are institutions' One of the former first lady's daughters, Jenna Bush Hager, spoke about her connection to Camp Mystic on NBC's "Today" show on July 7. "My mom was a counselor there, but also so many of my friends were raised at this camp," she said. "Texas camps are institutions, as you just heard, where were many family members − generations − this camp was 100 years old, so grandmothers, mothers, kids have all gone there." Hager said her mother was a drama counselor at the camp, and that many of her friends had their kids at Camp Mystic as recently as last week. "The stories that I heard over the last couple days were beautiful and heartbreaking," she said. "Texas has a type of resilience where they're generous people, where people want to reach out and help." Camp Mystic director died during Texas floods Camp Mystic director Richard "Dick" Eastland is among those who died during the flooding. He and his wife, Tweety, had been running the camps for decades and lived on the property. A former camper and family friend to Eastland, Paige Sumner, wrote about the director in a column in the Kerrville Daily Times published July 5. She said he died while trying to rescue campers. "It doesn't surprise me at all that his last act of kindness and sacrifice was working to save the lives of campers," Sumner wrote. "He had already saved so many lives with the gift of Camp Mystic." Contributing: Christopher Cann and Mike Snider, USA TODAY. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Where is Camp Mystic, the Christian girls camp hit by flooding in Texas?
Severe flooding hit Camp Mystic, a 99-year-old private nondenominational Christian camp for girls in the Texas Hill Country. More than 750 girls were at the camp, which is located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, where rain of up to 12 inches an hour fell, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a press conference Friday afternoon. Flash flooding occurred as river waters rose 29 feet rapidly near the camp, officials said. At the time, about 20 girls were missing, Patrick said. Parents and relatives have been posting on social media as they have learned about the deaths of young family members who had been attending the camp. At least three girls have died, based on reports from family members. Live updates: Texas flooding death toll rises to 27; children among the dead What is Camp Mystic? Camp Mystic for Girls was founded in 1926 by Edward "Doc" Stewart, who was the football and men's basketball coach at the University of Texas, according to an Internet Archive's capture of the camp's website (much of the site was overwhelmed with traffic on Saturday). The camp has been in operation since then. However, during World War II it served as a "rehabilitation and recovery camp for army air corps veterans," according to the site. "Campers and counselors join together to sing songs, listen to scripture, discover ways to grow spiritually, and learn to apply these lessons to their daily life at camp and back home," according to the site. Religious activities include: Bible studies, Saturday evening Catholic Mass, Sunday morning devotionals along the river, Sunday evening Vespers services, and, once during each two-week or four-week term, a sunrise communion service. Other activities include cooking, dance, basketball, horseback riding, lacrosse, swimming, soccer and yoga. Where is Camp Mystic in Texas? Camp Mystic for Girls, is in Texas, about six miles south of Hunt, Texas, in Kerr County. That's within Texas Hill Country, about 80 miles northwest of San Antonio. The original camp and a second camp, opened in 2020 near Cypress Lake, is bisected by Cypress Creek. YouTube videos show the camp facilities nestled within the tree-filled landscape at the two camps, one along the Guadalupe River and the newer camp near Cypress Lake. Contributing: Reuters Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day
Buzz Feed
2 days ago
- Buzz Feed
Real WW2 Stories: Families Share Hidden Histories
My Grandpa Russ was an Air Force pilot during World War II, but like many men of that generation, he rarely talked about what he saw. Recently, my dad and I went through his journal from that time period, and what really struck me were the personal anecdotes, like hanging out with his buddies and his efforts to learn French to flirt with European ladies (Nana wasn't in the picture yet). There were also horrifying details, like an account of watching his buddy die as their plane crash-landed in Switzerland. That's Gramps looking studious in a photo we found tucked into his journal. So when I came across this thread of people sharing their family stories from WWII, I was instantly hooked on these incredibly human stories that show the day-to-day reality of living through this turbulent historical period. Here are some of the most fascinating stories that made history come to life before my eyes: "My grandpa on my dad's side was in the Navy. Served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean as a steamfitter. Got himself a war bride from England, returned to Canada, and became a boilermaker at a paper mill. He died when I was a young teen, so I never heard any stories. His wife, the British war bride, was a WREN [Women's Royal Naval Service] and worked in Army intelligence. She actually worked on the world's first computer, part of Alan Turing's Enigma-cracking group, although she didn't realize it until well after the war, when the information was finally declassified." "All she knew was that she had to watch cylinders turn and then, when they stopped, take a reading, pass it on up, and reset a new cylinder. She had no idea what any of it meant."—KnoWanUKnow2 "My father quit high school and enlisted in the Navy before his 18th birthday late in the war. To quote him, he was afraid the war would end without him. He really wanted to fight Nazis (we are Jewish), but he ended up in the Philippines. I knew he drove a landing craft, but the worst story I ever heard was when the washing machine on his ship tore skin off his hand, and he needed a skin graft. When Saving Private Ryan came out, I mentioned the opening scene and asked how realistic it was." "My grandfather (born 1906) participated in WWII, as a German soldier, and yes, he was a Nazi. At to the early stages of war. He had some real 'are we the baddies' moments that made him change. And he did not talk to my father about what stuff he had done out of shame, but shortly before killing himself in his high 90s, he talked to me about what he did. And explained to me why he lived his whole life long in fear that either Americans, 'the Jews,' or the Russians would get him in revenge." "After the war, he went full SPD (left-social Democratic Party), supported my father being a full-blown antifascist, and the same for me. He was ashamed until his self-chosen death because of his stupidity. He explained to me what led to that, but also told me that this could never be an excuse to switch off one's brain and actively vote for a guy who told the world before in a book what he would do if he rose to power."—Llewellian "My dad was in the North Pacific in WWII. He never talked about it. We finally asked him why when we were old enough to realize how horrible it must have been. He answered direct questions but volunteered little. One story we all loved was him standing in line as weapons were being assigned when they got off the boat. The guy handing them out had a huge bazooka and was eying my 6'2" dad down the line. He did NOT want to lug that thing all over Asia. Another officer went by asking if anyone could type. Dad had been in business college, yay! He spent most of his time in a tent with a typewriter after that." "My mom (96 now) fled from bombs dropped in Tokyo in 1942. So yes, she 'participated' as a Japanese citizen." —CanAny1DoItRight "Both of my grandads pushed the Germans out of France. They didn't talk about it, but they did tell me about how important it was that they did the job for the sake of humanity. And they had very compelling arguments about how the armed conflicts the US took part in after WWII were not worthy in most ways (up to around 1998). Knowing their views and learning their thoughts, I'm sure both Grandpa and Popo are furious that the world isn't fighting harder for Ukraine, financially and militarily." "My dad was in WWII. He was a dancer and comedian and was in a group with Melvyn Douglas, Peter Gennaro, and other entertainers. They traveled around entertaining the troops. When he wasn't doing that, he worked as a cook." —Bitter_Face8790 "My dad was in the Army. He fought the Japanese. He remembers every morning, the Japanese pilots would bomb their camp at 5 a.m. They'd get into a foxhole with trees covering them. They could hear the shrapnel hitting over their heads. One guy in his company completely lost it. He killed himself in his bed. They were all given a cyanide pill in case they got captured by the enemy." "My nonno (grandfather) fought on the Italian side. Before he met my nonna and had my dad and aunt, he had a wife and two young children — a boy and a girl — who were killed in an American carpet bombing raid. He came home and found his village leveled and his family dead. He just started over again." —baitbus666 "One grandfather was too old by a few months to be drafted. The other one went. The only time he ever spoke about it was when he was in the hospital, dying. His dementia made him think it was many years earlier. So occasionally, some military things slipped out." "Both of my grandfathers served in the military: My maternal grandfather was in the Infantry and fought in, among other things, the Battle of the Bulge. My paternal grandfather served in the Army as a photographer for the Department of War; he carried a gun but never fired it." "My maternal grandfather loved telling war stories. I think he processed his trauma by framing his experiences as an adventure. He had grown up in rural Maine and was an outdoorsman who loved hunting and fishing, and he thought his early experiences in the woods helped him survive the war. He absolutely had PTSD and had nightmares his whole life.""My paternal grandfather did not like talking about the war, and so far as I know, told stories about it only once, when my brother asked to interview him for a school project. He also absolutely had PTSD and had nightmares his whole life.""Both my grandmothers also participated in the war effort as civilians. My maternal grandmother went to work for the FBI as a file clerk in Washington, DC.""My paternal grandmother had grown up in the deep south with parents who'd very much scripted out her life for her (and it was going to involve some genteel women's college followed by marriage to someone respectable); when the war broke out, this meant suddenly her life opened up in ways she had not expected. She patriotically went north to work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where she met and fell in love with my grandfather (a Yankee son of an immigrant, pretty much the son-in-law of my great-grandparents' nightmares). They settled back down in Dayton, Ohio, after the war. Sadly, she died in her early 60s and I didn't get to know her very well."—SignedUpJustFrThis "Both my folks were in the war. My Dutch mother went through the Nazi occupation and carried messages for the underground on her bicycle. After the war, she was a Red Cross interpreter in the refugee camp where I was born in '47. My American dad was an Army soldier who was in Europe from '43 'til '53. He went through D-Day all the way through to the camps." "My father's father wanted to fight, but he worked at a munitions factory, and they wouldn't let him go sign up. He was considered an essential home front worker. He was always a little bitter about it, but my grandmother once told me that she was so thankful that he was needed and that he couldn't go. My mother's father served, but he never saw active combat. He did ship repair in the Navy and was stationed out of the Port of San Francisco." —MaggieMae68 "My dad was stationed in Australia during WWII, where he got married and divorced within two months to an Australian woman. Meanwhile, my mom was doing her part from home by writing letters to several GIs in Europe. We found their letters to her after she passed away in November. They were quite flirty. She also went to dances and things here in the US with military guys before they shipped out. My parents met and married in the 1950s." "My mother, who was 13 at the time, and her parents were interned in Weihsien, a Japanese prisoner of war camp in north China. While it was fairly miserable, they were not treated as harshly as captured Allied soldiers. My mother would talk about life in camp occasionally." "My father was also a teenager, and he refused to be evacuated from London during the Blitz. He would also talk about surviving the bombing and rationing sometimes."—jlzania "My father served in the Coast Guard in WWII. When we asked him what he did, he said 'nothing.' About a year before he died, he started to tell us about driving landing craft to islands under attack, dodging bullets, and bringing back dead and wounded to the Navy ship he served on. He and his friend, who served under Patton, never talked about the war except with each other. 'No one else would understand.' They kept their trauma to themselves." "My maternal grandfather was killed in a live grenade training camp accident at Fort Benning just weeks after getting drafted into the US Army in July 1945. My mom was 4 years old. My paternal grandfather was a private in the US Army and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries suffered during the Battle of Aachen in December 1944." —revo2022 "My grandpa was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. I had the luxury of returning with him many years ago. He was a bomber pilot and managed to escape in his plane despite still being slightly drunk from the party the night before." "My stepdad was in the British Army. He had polio as a kid, so he had short legs, so he got to be a tank driver. On his first day out, there was a huge bang, and the tank stopped. He got out of his seat and looked back, and there was no turret. He was the only survivor." "The next day, he was in another tank. That night, everyone slept under the tank for protection. There was no room for him as he was the new guy, so he had to sleep beside the tank. It rained that night. The next morning, the tank had sunk into the mud. Everyone was asphyxiated except Dad, since he wasn't under the tank. He was the only survivor.""No one wanted him after that. They joked about giving him a German uniform and sending him to the other side."—astcell "My Oma lived in Germany, my Opa was in the Army, and brought her home with him. I interviewed my Oma for a WWII report once in high school, and she didn't say much. Her parents died in the war. I don't know how her father passed, but I know her mother died in the attempted assassination of Hitler. A bombing in a restaurant, if I remember correctly. My Oma was 11 at the time. Hitler attended the funeral (it was a group funeral with all of the victims). I got a really great grade on my paper, my Oma's interview, and the photos of her with Hitler at my great-grandmother's funeral earned me extra credit." "My grandfather fought in the Pacific theater. He didn't talk about it often, but I know he was proud of his service. When he died (a bit over 20 years ago), there was a display with several medals. I can't recall exactly what was said, but it was something along the lines of, 'If I go to my grave without anyone knowing how I won these medals, I'll have done my duty.'" —SlightlyTwistedGames "My uncle was in the Air Force and flew on bombing raids over Europe. From what I have seen in movies, that must have been terrifying, but the only stories he told me were funny. He told me one story about a gunner on his plane and how he got a Purple Heart." And finally, "My late father served in the Pacific. Very proud Marine. He talked more about the people he met in China as part of the peacekeeping force after the war was over. But then, when Windtalkers came out, he said, 'I guess I can talk about it now.' He was sworn to secrecy. He guarded one of the Navajo code talkers!" —1rarebird55 Do you have a story to share about your family from World War II? Tell us about it in the comments or via the anonymous form below:
