Remains of Soldier killed during World War II to be buried in Shoreline

Tech Sgt Alfred F Turgeo

The remains of a Soldier killed during World War II will be interred at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church Columbarium, August 28, 2021. 

Funeral services for Army Air Forces Tech. Sgt. Alfred F. Turgeon will be performed by Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home, Seattle, preceding the interment.

The private ceremony will be attended by family members with honors by Starr Sutherland Jr. American Legion Post 227 from Shoreline.

A native of Ketchikan, Alaska, Turgeon was a pilot assigned to the 344th Bombardment Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 9th Air Force. 

On August 1, 1943, the B-24 Liberator aircraft on which Turgeon was serving as a radio operator, crashed after being hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire during Operation TIDAL WAVE, the largest bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania. 

He was just 23 years old. Turgeon’s remains could not be identified, following the war, and were buried as Unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiești, Prahova, Romania.

In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming unknowns believed to be associated with unaccounted-for airmen from Operation TIDAL WAVE. The remains were sent to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.

Turgeon was accounted for by the DPAA on January 13, 2021, after his remains were identified using dental, anthropological, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal DNA analysis.

His name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Impruneta, Italy, along with others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

For additional information about Tech. Sgt. Turgeon, go to https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/News-Releases/PressReleaseArticleView/Article/2472558/airman-accounted-for-from-world-war-ii-turgeon-a/

To learn more about the Department of Defense’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, www.facebook.com/dodpaa, or call (703) 699-1420/1169.