Brooklyn soldier missing since WWII identified
The remains of a soldier missing in action since World War II have been identified and will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, a Department of Defense office said Wednesday.
Army Pfc. Bernard Gavrin, who was from Brooklyn, was 29 when he was reported missing on July 7, 1944, the Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office said. His regiment had been in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands of the western Pacific Ocean and came under heavy attack, suffering many casualties.
Gavrin was declared dead in July 1945, and his remains were deemed non-recoverable in 1948. But in recent years, excavations on Saipan by a Japanese nonprofit group have turned up the remains of American and Japanese soldiers.