Eighty-one years after Robert Cyr Jr's seaplane went down in the South Pacific, the US Navy airman's remains have been identified and returned to his family for burial. A funeral service with full military honors took place Saturday in Clearwater, Florida, ending one of World War II's lingering mysteries.
Cyr was 19 years old when his aircraft crashed on January 22, 1944, while taking off in the Segond channel near what is now Vanuatu. Nine crew members were aboard. Three survived the crash, four were recovered in the immediate aftermath, but Cyr and one other airman vanished into the ocean.
The wreck remained underwater for decades until researchers from Sealark Exploration located and documented the site in July 2022. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which tracks unaccounted-for military personnel, authorized the dive. A second team, Cosmos Archaeology, conducted excavations in June 2024 and May 2025, recovering human remains and bone tissue from the wreckage.
Scientists at the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis to confirm the remains belonged to Cyr. Anthropological analysis and material evidence corroborated the identification.
Before deployment, Cyr had given an interview describing his role as an aviation radioman. He explained that his patrol squadron's mission was to identify enemy positions and movements across the Solomon Islands and surrounding waters. During his service in the Southwest Pacific, he logged roughly 112,000 miles on combat patrols. He witnessed the aerial battles over the Solomon Islands firsthand and reported losing 40 fellow aviators to enemy action. His squadron credited itself with rescuing more than 35 downed pilots from the sea.
Cyr's niece, Chickee Gould, told local news station WTVT that his mother never abandoned hope that her son would be found. Gould's son, Don Teague, emphasized the decades-long commitment of recovery teams: "That's the main thing, people don't give up. And you don't realize how hard they're still looking after 80 years."
His military decorations included a Purple Heart, a combat action ribbon, and the World War II Victory Medal. Cyr's name had been inscribed on the tablets of the missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Officials will now place a rosette next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Cyr was born in Philadelphia and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. Both of his parents and his sister passed away before his remains were recovered. Gould remarked that knowing her uncle would finally rest with his mother brought the family comfort. "That's, to us, the most important," she said.
Author James Rodriguez: "Eighty years later and this family finally gets closure, a reminder that some searches never really end."
Comments