National Guard to provide funeral honors for WWII MIA returning home to Central NY

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Staff Sgt. John A. Pagliuso

LYONS, NEW YORK (10/28/2025) (readMedia)-- A Lyons resident who died in World War II will be laid to rest with full honors by the New York Army National Guard at the town's Old Elmwood Cemetery on Friday, Nov. 7.

An Honor Guard will provide military funeral honors for Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. John A. Pagliuso, who died on October 5,1942 during a bombing mission over Papua New Guinea.

He was listed as missing until his remains were identified in March of this year.

Receiving the colors from Pagliuso's casket will be his niece, Norma Jo Davis, of Canandaigua, N.Y.

News media are invited for the military honors.

WHO: Members of the New York National Guard Honor Guard join the family of Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. John A. Pagliuso for his final military honors.

WHAT: Final military honors for the funeral service of WWII Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. John A. Pagliuso. His remains return 83 years after the October 1942 mission over New Guinea, in which he was killed.

WHEN: Funeral service at 11 a.m., Friday, November 7, 2025 at the Lyons, New York, cemetery.

WHERE: Old Elmwood Cemetery, 129 Phelps Street, Lyons, New York, 14489.

Media Opportunity:

Imagery of full military honors for the burial of WWII missing Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. John Pagliuso, including the firing of honors, playing of Taps and the presentation of the folded American flag to the family. For more information, contact New York Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Michael Lebron, the family casualty assistance noncommissioned officer at 585-783-5318.

For funeral details, contact the Boeheim-Pusateri Funeral Home at 315-946-4230.

Background

Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. John A. Pagliuso

Staff Sergeant John A. Pagliuso was born to Italian immigrants in 1918, growing up in the village of Lyons, New York. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at Mitchel Field, Hempstead, New York, October 3, 1939.

He trained as an aerial photographer and joined the 405th Bombardment Squadron, 38th Bombardment Group, and served in the Southwest Pacific Theater during World War II.

On October 5, 1942, the B-25D Mitchell medium bomber he was onboard did not return from a mission over the Territory of Papua (now Papua New Guinea).

Part of a flight of two, the bombers patrolled the coastal area near Buna until they made visual contact with one large enemy transport escorted by two Japanese destroyers.

They radioed the position of the convoy and immediately engaged the enemy force.

Six Japanese fighter aircraft proceeded to pounce on the twin-engine bomber, and Pagliuso's B-25D was last observed in a steep dive with six Zeros on their tail.

The second aircraft successfully broke contact and safely returned to base, where the squadron scrambled six more B-25s, but those crews encountered opposition from enemy fighter pilots and were forced to jettison their bombs and return to base.

Officials reported Pagliuso and the six other crew members missing.

Search efforts located the aircraft crash site in 1944 and recovered only one set of remains for the six crewmembers, which were unidentified, later interred as Unknown X-133 at the cemetery established at Fort McKinley, Manila, known as the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial since 1960.

A final search in northern Papua took place from July through December 1948. A team of U.S. officers, enlisted men, and local guides, interpreters, and laborers questioned hundreds of local officials and residents but collected no additional evidence related to the crew of Pagliuso's B-25D.

Pagliuso was memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Republic of the Philippines.

His wife, Lucile Pagliuso, then residing in Jackson, Mississippi, received the notice from the War Department December 13, 1945 changing his status from missing to dead.

In 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recommended the disinterment of these Unknown remains with a list of possible candidates for association; those candidates included Pagliuso, one of the aircraft crew members. The remains were exhumed in December 2022 and escorted to the DPAA Laboratory in Hawaii for analysis.

His remains were confirmed through a DNA match with Pagliuso's maternal niece and sister on March 17, 2025.

Pagliuso will be laid to rest adjacent to his parents' plot at Old Elmwood Cemetery.

New York Army National Guard Military Funeral Honors was established in July 1999. Our teams provide military funeral honors for more than 850 veterans each month.