Michigan pilot killed in final dogfight of World War II finally identified

DETROIT -- A naval aviator from Detroit who was one of four Americans shot down on the last day of World War II will finally receive a proper burial next month.

The remains of Ensign Eugene Mandeberg were recently identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in collaboration with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory on March 4.

He will be buried with full military honors at Beth El Memorial Park in Livonia on Sept. 14.

It was Aug. 15, 1945, when Mandeberg was killed in the last aerial dogfight of the war. He was piloting one of several F6F Hellcats that had launched from the USS Yorktown on a sweep of airfields northwest of Tokyo with the goal of clearing a path for bombers and torpedo planes.

When the war in the Pacific ended that day, the planes began to return to th