Homyak, Eugene A.
Army 2nd lieutenant

Eugene A. Homyak, age 22, from Colorado.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Saturday, May 26, 1945
Death details: On April 24, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress (serial number 42-94206) with a crew of eleven departed Guam for a bombing mission against enemy installations in Tachikawa, Japan. Just after it dropped its bombs, this plane caught fire and entered a slow downward turn to the right before crashing and burning on the ground. Six members of the crew were killed in the crash. Their remains were later recovered near the crash site and identified. Five members of the crew bailed out and were taken to a military prison in Tokyo, where they later died during an airstrike. The remains of two of those men were later recovered and identified, but the remains of the other three could not be located. Second Lieutenant Eugene A. Homyak entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Colorado and served in the 43rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group. He was the radar navigator on this Superfortress when it was lost. 2LT Homyak was the lone survivor from his crew but was killed in the fire that consumed the Tokyo Military Prison. He has not been associated with any remains recovered from the area after the war and is still unaccounted-for. Today, Second Lieutenant Homyak is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency