U.S. Army Air Forces Sgt. Adolph Aguirre, an Exeter native who went missing in 1943 after his bomber was shot down over Italy, is scheduled to return home more than 80 years later after his remains were identified, according to family members.
Juan Aguirre, Sgt. Aguirre's first cousin once removed, said he never expected the day would come.
"I never imagined even that this would actually happen, where we would have him come home to us again," Juan Aguirre said.
Sgt. Aguirre was 21 years old and serving as an assistant radio operator aboard a B-24 bomber in the summer of 1943. On Aug. 16, 1943, his aircraft was one of nine bombers shot down over enemy territory in Italy.
After years without any indication that he had survived, the Department of Defense declared Aguirre dead and non-recoverable in 1950.
"His parents passed, and they never knew of him other than the fact that they had eventually reported him as KIA, which is killed in action, because they could never find his remains," Juan Aguirre said.
Juan Aguirre said his search for information about his relative began about 20 years ago.
"I actually started this quest 20 years ago with the idea that I would find out as much information as I could about Adolph," he said.
As part of that effort, he researched military records and uploaded the only photograph his family had of Sgt. Aguirre to a military website.
"All that was up was just his name, his rank, and some information, but there was nobody claiming him as family, right? So, I loaded up the one and only picture that we had, and at that point. Basically, Adolph now had an actual face to him. It wasn't just a name anymore," he said.
He also traveled to Exeter to learn more about his relative's life.
"I went back to the, um, the city of Exeter, and went to a library, pulled out the, um, high school yearbooks, and started reading more about him," Juan Aguirre said.
In 2022, historians with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency requested DNA samples from Juan Aguirre and his son as part of an effort to identify the missing sergeant.
Despite participating in the process, Juan Aguirre said he did not expect a breakthrough.
"....never had like high hopes, because from what I knew at the time was that there wasn't many people being identified," he said.
That changed this past June, when he received a phone call informing him that Sgt. Aguirre had been identified.
"It took some time for me to really, um, consume the information and, and, um, I guess, know that it was really happening and that this was really true," he said.
The family is scheduled to receive Sgt. Aguirre's remains on Sept. 11, 83 years after he went missing over waters off the coast of Italy.
"Now we even get to tell a bigger story. A bigger story than we actually have... brought his remains back, that he is home," Juan Aguirre said.
Family members tell Action News that Sgt. Aguirre is scheduled to arrive at Fresno Yosemite International Airport at about 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11. He will then be escorted home to Exeter.
A burial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18, at Exeter Cemetery.
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