Born: 1918, Crenshaw Co., Alabama

Married: 1940 Okaloosa Co. FL

Enlisted: 27th April, 1942 Ft. McClellan, AL

Missing (Later KIA) May 29, 1943 after attack on St. Nazaire, France



Funeral services will be held this week in Pensacola for an Alabama man killed during World War II.



The remains of Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Percy C. Mathews, 25, of Andalusia, Alabama, were just recently identified. He will be buried Thursday in Pensacola.



On May 29, 1943, Mathews was a member of the 422nd Bombardment Squadron, 305th Bombardment Group, 8th U.S. Air Force, participating in a strike against the German submarine base at Saint-Nazaire, France.



The B-17 Mathews was aboard was hit by enemy fire as it left the target area. Mathews did not make it out of the bomber before it crashed. Survivors believed the aircraft crashed about 95 miles from Saint-Nazaire, near the French village of Quintin. German reports indicated one casualty was recovered from the wreckage of the plane, though no burial information was provided.



Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) searched for and disinterred the remains of U.S. servicemen in Europe as part of the global effort to identify and return fallen servicemen. Remains that could not be identified were designated as unknowns and interred in U.S. overseas cemeteries. Beginning in 2010, DPAA and its predecessors digitized and began to analyze more than 8,000 files for Unknowns from WWII.



One set of unidentified remains, designated X-205 St. James, were disinterred from a cemetery in St. Brieuc, France, prior to September 16, 1944. The remains could not be identified and were interred in the American cemetery at St. James, present day Brittany American Cemetery.



The remains were later positively identified using mitochondrial (mtDNA), anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.



SATURDAY, 29 MAY 1943

(Eighth Air Force) VIII Bomber Command Mission Number 61: 169 B-17's are dispatched against the submarine pens and locks at Saint-Nazaire, France; 147 aircraft hit the target at 1706-1711 hours local; we claim 6-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft; we lose 8 B-17's, 1 is damaged beyond repair and 58 are damaged; casualties are 10 WIA and 71 MIA. 7 YB-40's, heavily armored B-17's with increased firepower for escorting bombers, fly their first mission. YB-40's show an inability to keep up with B-17's and the need for modification of waist and tail gun feeds and ammunition supplies. In two other raids, 72 B-17's are dispatched against the Rennes, France naval depot; 57 hit the target at 1601-1605 hours; we claim 19-5-14 Luftwaffe aircraft; we lose 6 B-17's, 1 is damaged beyond repair and 30 others are damaged; casualties are 1 KIA, 10 WIA and 64 MIA. In the third raid, 38 B-24's are dispatched against the U-boat yards at La Pallice, France; 34 hit the target without any casualties on either side.



Notes



The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the remains of an Unknown buried in Plot K Row 11 Grave 18 at Brittany American Cemetery with the belief that an identification could be made. Laboratory analysis and circumstantial evidence were used to positively identify the remains as belonging to SSgt. Percy C. Mathews, 422nd Bomber Squadron, 305th Bomber Group, Heavy, who lost his life May 29, 1943. His name remains permanently inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery.