Back in June, a dozen service members, veterans, and police and fire personnel stood at solemn salute in the small island community of Sitka, Alaska while two U.S. Coast Guardsmen carried an American flag-adorned case from a cemetery to a hearse.

They weren’t there to honor a recently deceased soldier. Rather, to formally mark the disinterment and transport of an unidentified soldier known simply as “X-3,” who’s been dead for over eighty years.

X-3 is one of more than 81,000 U.S. service members whose remains have either never been found or never been identified. The majority are missing from World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War.

An agency within the Department of Defense is tasked with locating and identifying these service members. Their remains are rarely found on U.S. soil because it wasn’t a primary theater of war, according to DOD. But in Hawaii and Alaska, where military action took place during WWII, there are more missing soldiers. DOD says there are currently around 120 unidentified soldiers in Alaska and over 1,900 in Hawaii.

The remains of the unidentified solder known as “X-3” are loaded into a hearse in Sitka, Alaska before being transported to a Midwest forensics lab.

Hope McKenney/KCAW

hide caption

toggle caption

Hope McKenney/KCAW

A plane crash in the Aleutians 

The story of X-3 goes back to June 3, 1942, when Japan bombed Unalaska — also known as Dutch Harbor — a community about 800 air miles from Anchorage in the Aleutian Islands. The U.S. military responded, sending resources to help defend against the attack.

“One of the planes crashed outside of Cold Bay, on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula. All the service members on that plane perished,” said Michael Livingston, a local history buff who’s spent a lot of time studying WWII events in the Aleutians.

Sixteen soldiers were on the twin-motor C-53B when it went down during a routine flight between two Alaska bases. The wreckage of the plane and 10 of the servicemen were never found. Livingston said a local fur trapper found the bodies of the other six soldiers after they washed up on shore and buried them temporarily. The U.S. military then re-buried them in a local cemetery. And then, after the war, moved most of them to their respective communities. Only one of the recovered men remained unidentified: X-3.