ID'd KIA MIA WW2 WWII M1917A1 Kelly Helmet Army Air Corps Military

M1917A1 Kelly helmet named to MIA/KIA navigator Lt Hugh Day McNeil. He enlisted on 4/14/41 and served with Headquarters Company, 104th Quartermaster Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Maryland National Guard. He later transferred to the Army Air Corps and was comissioned before joining the 69th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group as a navigator at Guadalcanal during the first two weeks of March 1943.

On June 22nd, 1943, 2nd Lieutenant McNeil climbed aboard his B25 and took off from Carney Field, Guadalcanal for his 11th bombing mission on Rekata Bay. The weather was bad, with heavy rain and storms surrounding their target. As all eight planes completed their strafing run of a Japanese held village on the northern tip of Ganongga, they suddenly entered a solid overcast.

With visibility poor, instrument flying was necessary and the formation began gaining altitude to clear the clouds. McNeil, along with pilot Lt. Melvin Van Dyke, radio operator S/Sgt Leo E. Hamilton, engineer S/Sgt William Pierce, Sgt. Frank Spognardi, and photographer 1st Lt. Moran was declared missing in action.

The exact cause of the plane's disappearance was never discovered, and since it was last seen under control, the crew was not officially declared KIA until February 7th, 1946, months after the war ended. 1st Lieutenant Hugh McNeil is memorialized on the tablets of the missing in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines. To this day, the wreckage and crew of B25C-5 #42-53404 have never been located.

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