Keeney, Clifford E.
Army Staff sergeant

Clifford E. Keeney, age 26, from York County Pennsylvania.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Wednesday, September 13, 1944
Death details: On June 12, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Clifford E. Keeney, missing from World War II. Keeney entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Pennsylvania and served with the 327th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group. On September 13, 1944, he was the top turret gunner aboard a B-17G Flying Fortress aircraft, serial number 42-31250, nicknamed “Mag the Hag, the 2nd,” which carried nine crew members and took off from AAF Station 109, England, on a bombing mission with six other bombers against oil refineries near Merseburg, Germany. Four of these seven planes were shot down. According to German records, Keeney’s B-17G crashed on railroad tracks near the town of Neustädt, Thuringen, Germany. Eight of the nine crew members onboard were killed and buried by German forces in a cemetery in the town. In June 1945, following the end of hostilities, an American Graves Registration Command investigation team was able to exhume and transport the remains of the aircraft’s pilot to the U.S. Military Cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands. However, none of the other remains recovered were identified successfully as Keeney. In 1991, a resident digging a grave in the Neustädt cemetery discovered a U.S. military identification tag belonging to one of the aircraft’s crewmembers, along with parachute remnants. The resident was interviewed years later, but unfortunately German burial laws prevented disturbance of the site for at least 20 years after a modern burial had taken place. In September 2008 a recovery team excavated the area and discovered possible remains and material evidence, which was sent to a DPAA laboratory for analysis, and resulted in the identification of four of Keeney’s crew members. From May to June 2024, a DPAA recovery team returned to the area and continued excavation of the Neustädt cemetery, finding possible remains and life support equipment, after which all recovered evidence was transferred to the DPAA Laboratory for forensic analysis. Based on the laboratory analysis and total circumstantial evidence, a set of the recovered remains were identified as those of Keeney.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency