Preston County native Jay Manown’s college career at West Virginia University was cut short just before his graduation when he was drafted into World War II. The mining engineering student became a naval flight instructor and then was ordered to a tour of duty in the Alaskan Theater, and on to the Pacific where he was an aviator on board the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. The mission: A dozen Hellcat fighter planes to sink Japanese aircraft carriers.

On Sept. 10, 1944, the Japanese were ready for them. Antiaircraft fire from the surrounding Palau Islands hit the belly of Lt. Manown’s plane, sending it in a violent spiral into the sea. The plane was deemed unrecoverable.

“No one left behind” is a military credo that dates to the beginning of modern warfare. Project Recover, which has returned 75 bodies or remains of U.S. soldiers, pilots and sailors to their families, helps keep that promise. Manown’s plane, the “Christian Duchess,” named for his mother whom he adored and teased relentlessly, according to his surviving family, was recovered 10 years ago, along with the bodies of the other crew members, Anthony Di Petta, the gunner, and Wilbur “Archie” Mitts, the radioman and flight navigator.

Manown's remains were given a funeral with full military rites at the Kingwood Funeral Home, with burial in Maplewood Cemetery.

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