Fred L. Brewer Jr.

Image: Remains uncovered in Italy after World War II have been identified as Second Lieutenant Fred L. Brewer Jr., a Charlotte, North Carolina native and Tuskegee Airman.

Brewer graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1942.
He enlisted in the Army the following year and trained as a pilot at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama.

The Pentagon and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Brewer's identity was confirmed on Aug. 10, 2023.
.

Lt. Fred L. Brewer Jr. was a Tuskegee Airman from North Carolina, he's been Identified as unknown soldier 79 years after vanishing in WWII

By WTVD Charlotte, NC
Sunday, September 3, 2023 11:46PM

Remains uncovered in Italy after World War II have been identified as Second Lieutenant Fred L. Brewer Jr., a North Carolina native and Tuskegee Airman.

The Pentagon and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Brewer's identity was confirmed on Aug. 10, 2023.

Brewer went missing while piloting one of 57 fighter planes escorting bombers on a mission to Regensburg, Germany, on Oct. 29, 1944.

The airplanes ran into heavy cloud cover in southern Italy, forcing 47 of the fighters to return to base.

Brewer was not among those who returned. He had reportedly been attempting to climb his airplane out of the cloud cover when he stalled and fell into a spin.

His parents, Fred and Janie Brewer of Charlotte, were told he had been declared dead two weeks later. Their son, a second lieutenant, was 23.

Remains were recovered after the war in a civilian cemetery in the area, but technology at the time was unable to identify the remains. So they were interred as an unknown.

New techniques allowed scientists with the Department of Defense to reexamine the remains and identify them as belonging to Brewer.

According to our newsgathering partners at the News & Observer, Brewer was a native of Charlotte who graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1942.
He enlisted in the Army the following year and trained as a pilot at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama.

A cousin of Brewer told The Washington Post that funeral arrangements had not yet been made, but she wanted to see Brewer properly buried in Charlotte.
.

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Conflict: WORLD WAR II
Service: UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCES
Status: Was unknown, Changed to Accounted For
Date of Identification: 08/10/2023

On August 10, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Second Lieutenant Fred L. Brewer Jr., missing from World War II.

Second Lieutenant Brewer, who joined the U.S. Army Air Forces from North Carolina, was a Tuskegee Airman and member of the 100th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group. On October 19, 1944, he piloted a single-seat P-51C Mustang (tail number 43-25108, nicknamed "Traveling Light") out of Ramitelli Air Field in Italy as one of fifty-seven fighters on a bomber escort mission over enemy targets in Regensburg, Germany.

The flight left Ramitelli and split into three groups over the Udine area of Italy to continue on to the target area. However, heavy cloud cover forced nine fighters to return to Ramitelli early, and none of the other fighters could locate their bomber aircraft or the target.

Forty-seven fighters eventually returned to base, and 2nd Lt. Brewer was not among them. Reports from other pilots on the mission indicate that 2nd Lt. Brewer had been attempting to climb his aircraft out of the cloud cover but stalled out and fell into a spin.

After the war, a body was recovered by U.S. personnel from a civilian cemetery in the area, but the remains could not be identified using techniques available at the time and were interred as an unknown. In 2011, researchers examined the case of those unknown remains and discovered that an Italian police report indicated they were recovered from a crashed fighter plane on the same day as 2LT Brewer's disappearance.

German wartime records corroborated this information. In June 2022, the remains were disinterred and sent to a DPAA laboratory for further study. The totality of evidence allowed a positive identification of the remains as those of 2LT Brewer.

Second Lieutenant Brewer is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Impruneta, Italy.
.

Military information source link: https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile...
.
Article link: https://abc11.com/tuskegee-airman-unknown.../13733258/

Article source link: https://www.newsobserver.com/.../local/article278935269.html