CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The sky was nearly half obscured by low-hanging clouds as 18 B-24 Liberator bombers clawed their way into the air, their twin rudders glinting in the patches of early morning light. It was Sept. 1, 1944.

The planes took off from Wakde Island, a small island just off the northern coast of New Guinea, bound for an island called Koror, 750 miles away in the Palau Islands, and near the limit of the big bombers' range. Captured from the Japanese just a few months before, Wakde's primitive airstrip served as a stepping-stone for Douglas MacArthur's island-hopping campaign to wrestle the vast Pacific from Japanese control.

Among the men in the rumbling aluminum-skinned bombers that day was the 11-man crew of Babes In Arms, flying the morning of Sept. 1 in a B-24 with the number 4273453 stenciled on her twin tails. Tail No. 4273453 was not the crew's regular plane, and baby-faced Lt. Jack Arnett, a 1936 graduate of Charleston High School who grew up on the West Side, was not their regular pilot.

Carolyn Rocchio, Arnett's cousin, was 12 years old when Arnett was killed on the Koror mission. She recalled him as an extremely quiet but brilliant young man.

"He used to get into all kinds of trouble for arguing with his teachers, and he was usually right," said Rocchio, who has been living in Florida since 1956. She heard stories that as a small boy, Arnett was frequently scolded for shooting the blossoms off his grandmother's flowers with a BB gun.

According to the official Army Air Force action report on the Koror mission, the first B-24 of the 307th Bombardment Group took off at 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 1 for the four-hour flight to Koror. Eighteen planes took off, but one turned back because of an oil leak.

Moderate cloud cover was noted on the way to the target, but the weather was clear over the town of Koror when the bombers began their attack just before 11 a.m. The planes were staggered from 16,000 feet to 16,600 feet.

"Heavy, intense and generally accurate [anti-aircraft] fire was encountered by the planes of this group," the action report said, its clinical, single-spaced typewritten pages belying the horror of combat in hostile skies. Arnett's plane, the only one to go down on the mission, was hit just as Arnett was about to drop his bombs.

"[Aircraft] #453 (Lt. Arnett, pilot) with a crew of 11 men, was shot down by AA fire over the target," the Army mission report said. "Two direct hits were observed in the left wing, and #2 engine burst into flames, just as the formation reached the bomb release line. The bomb load was salvoed and the left wing broke off; the fuselage broke in two just before the plane spun into the water between Koror Island and Babelthuap Island."

Crews in other bombers saw two or three parachutes open, but no one from the crew of Arnett's B-24 survived the war. The crewmen who bailed out were later killed by the Japanese.

The crew was officially listed as missing in action. The army declared Jack Arnett dead in 1946, but gave up searching for B-24 No. 4273453. Then, in 2006, Rocchio was told that the wreck, and Arnett's body, had been found.

The plane had been located by Dr. Pat Scannon, a California doctor and diving enthusiast who had been diving the waters of the Palaus since the early 1990s. Over the years, Scannon became interested in finding and identifying the wrecks of American planes lost during World War II.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The sky was nearly half obscured by low-hanging clouds as 18 B-24 Liberator bombers clawed their way into the air, their twin rudders glinting in the patches of early morning light. It was Sept. 1, 1944.

The planes took off from Wakde Island, a small island just off the northern coast of New Guinea, bound for an island called Koror, 750 miles away in the Palau Islands, and near the limit of the big bombers' range. Captured from the Japanese just a few months before, Wakde's primitive airstrip served as a stepping-stone for Douglas MacArthur's island-hopping campaign to wrestle the vast Pacific from Japanese control.

Among the men in the rumbling aluminum-skinned bombers that day was the 11-man crew of Babes In Arms, flying the morning of Sept. 1 in a B-24 with the number 4273453 stenciled on her twin tails. Tail No. 4273453 was not the crew's regular plane, and baby-faced Lt. Jack Arnett, a 1936 graduate of Charleston High School who grew up on the West Side, was not their regular pilot.

Carolyn Rocchio, Arnett's cousin, was 12 years old when Arnett was killed on the Koror mission. She recalled him as an extremely quiet but brilliant young man.

"He used to get into all kinds of trouble for arguing with his teachers, and he was usually right," said Rocchio, who has been living in Florida since 1956. She heard stories that as a small boy, Arnett was frequently scolded for shooting the blossoms off his grandmother's flowers with a BB gun.

According to the official Army Air Force action report on the Koror mission, the first B-24 of the 307th Bombardment Group took off at 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 1 for the four-hour flight to Koror. Eighteen planes took off, but one turned back because of an oil leak.

Moderate cloud cover was noted on the way to the target, but the weather was clear over the town of Koror when the bombers began their attack just before 11 a.m. The planes were staggered from 16,000 feet to 16,600 feet.

"Heavy, intense and generally accurate [anti-aircraft] fire was encountered by the planes of this group," the action report said, its clinical, single-spaced typewritten pages belying the horror of combat in hostile skies. Arnett's plane, the only one to go down on the mission, was hit just as Arnett was about to drop his bombs.

"[Aircraft] #453 (Lt. Arnett, pilot) with a crew of 11 men, was shot down by AA fire over the target," the Army mission report said. "Two direct hits were observed in the left wing, and #2 engine burst into flames, just as the formation reached the bomb release line. The bomb load was salvoed and the left wing broke off; the fuselage broke in two just before the plane spun into the water between Koror Island and Babelthuap Island."

Crews in other bombers saw two or three parachutes open, but no one from the crew of Arnett's B-24 survived the war. The crewmen who bailed out were later killed by the Japanese.

The crew was officially listed as missing in action. The army declared Jack Arnett dead in 1946, but gave up searching for B-24 No. 4273453. Then, in 2006, Rocchio was told that the wreck, and Arnett's body, had been found.

The plane had been located by Dr. Pat Scannon, a California doctor and diving enthusiast who had been diving the waters of the Palaus since the early 1990s. Over the years, Scannon became interested in finding and identifying the wrecks of American planes lost during World War II.

Scannon and a loose-knit group of friends organized the BentProp Project to locate crashed aircraft and help identify their crews.

Scannon began searching for Arnett's plane in 1994. Though he found many wrecks in the meantime, 4273453 remained elusive, and Scannon became obsessed with finding the missing B-24.

His search eventually led him to the National Archives, where a BentProp member had found previously undiscovered combat footage from the Sept. 1, 1944, mission to Koror. In the last two frames of a reel of motion picture film from the mission, Scannon noticed a splash in the water where the group had never searched before.

Arnett's aircraft was found in 2005, 60 feet underwater, exactly where the splash indicated it should have been.

"Jack's hands are fused to the [control] yoke," Rocchio said. "The skeleton was sitting in the pilot's seat, just like he was flying the plane. The control panel is intact."

Searchers found the skeletons of Arnett's crew remarkably well preserved, with most bones present. Rocchio said Arnett was found with coins in his pockets. Divers also found wristwatches, military dog tags, fragments of shoes and jewelry from the crewmembers.

The remains were turned over to the military's Joint POW/MIA Account Command for identification. Rocchio said DNA samples from the skeletons were matched to living relatives, confirming the identities of the crewmembers.

Arnett's identity was confirmed by a DNA sample matched to a 92-year-old brother who lives in Florida. Rocchio said the brother, H.M. Arnett, also served during the war, but suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

"There's no one left who knew him but myself and his brother," Rocchio said.

She is impressed that Arnett was found and identified after so many years, and the trouble that Scannon and the military took to return his remains. "It's just fascinating to me," Rocchio said. "When they say, 'no man left behind,' they mean no man left behind."

Arnett's remains will be cremated and laid to rest at a service with military honors in Orlando on Dec. 12.

Reach Rusty Marks at rustyma...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1215.