EVELETH, Minn. — Editor's Note: The video above reports on the first Minneapolis casualty during the attack on Pearl Harbor and originally aired on Dec. 7, 2021.
A 24-year-old Eveleth airman who was killed in World War II has been accounted for and will find his final resting place at the Arlington National Cemetery.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), Army Air Forces Captain Nando A. Cavalieri was accounted for on July 27, 2021.
Cavalieri was assigned to the 324th Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, according to his personnel profile.
The Eveleth man died on Feb. 3, 1945 when he was serving as a bombardier with ten other crew members on a B-17G Flying Fortress. Their mission took them from Bassingbourne, England, which is north of London, to Berlin, where the bomber was hit.
The DPAA says the bomber broke into two and crashed after it was hit with enemy anti-aircraft fire. Another 20 bombers were lost during the mission.
German forces then reportedly recovered Cavelieri's body and dog tags and buried him in Döberitz, Germany, on Feb. 7, officials say.
Once World War II ended, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), tasked with recovering the remains of fallen American personnel in Europe, recovered all of the American remains from Döberitz. The DPAA says Cavalieri's remains were unable to be identified. Later, on Oct. 23, 1951, Cavalieri was declared unrecoverable.
Nearly 70 years later, officials say DPAA historians conducted a research project between 2016 and 2018 and focused on eight sets of remains from Döberitz that had yet to be identified. Researchers found that one set, named X-4983 Neuville, was likely the remains of Cavalieri.
In June 2018, the remains were moved from the Ardennes American Cemetery from Belgium and sent to a DPAA lab in Nebraska for further testing and identification.
To identify the remains as 24-year-old Cavalieri, the DPAA conducted an anthropological analysis and scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System conducted both mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome analysis.
In Margraten, Netherlands, DPAA says Cavalieri's name was etched on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery and now a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.
Cavalieri will now be buried at the Arlington National Cemetery but a burial date has not be set, according to officials.
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