The remains of a Detroit native that was killed as a soldier during World War II will be buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.
U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Adolph Leonard Olenik was assigned to the 345th Bombardment Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force, while also serving as a gunner aboard a B-24 Liberator aircraft when it crashed on Aug. 1, 1943.
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The aircraft was hit by enemy anti-craft fire during Operation Tidal Wave, which was the largest bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania.
Olenik was 19 years old.
His remains were not identified and were later buried as unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.
The DPAA accounted for Olenik on Jan. 26, 2022, after his remains were identified using dental, anthropological, and chest radiograph analysis and mitochondrial DNA, Y chromosome DNA, and autosomal DNA analysis.
Olenik is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Impruneta, Italy, alongside those still missing from World War II.
