FRIENDLY - A regent with the Daughters of the American Revolution is trying to get the remains of a World War II pilot shot down in the Pacific buried next to his parents in the Friendly Cemetery.

Lt. Jack Arnett was the pilot of a B-24 Liberator that took off from Wake Island off the coast of New Guinea on Sept. 1, 1944, on a bombing mission 750 miles away at Koror where it was struck by anti-aircraft fire and fell into the ocean, according to the U.S. Army Air Force mission report. The plane and the flier's remains were found in 2005 by the Bent Prop Project, a group dedicated to finding American planes shot down in World War II.

Remains were identified by the Joint POW/MIA Account Command using DNA of living relatives. Arnett's DNA was matched to his 92-year-old brother, H.M. Arnett, who lives in Florida where Arnett's remains are to be cremated and laid to rest on Dec. 12 in a service with military rites.

But Arnett's parents, B.B. and Dessie Ash Arnett, are buried at the Friendly Cemetery where there is a memorial marker for Arnett, said Frances Wright Weekley, regent of the Ohio Valley Chapter of the West Virginia DAR. Arnett graduated in 1936 from Charleston High School.

The marker shows his parents wanted him buried next to them, she said. Arnett's mother lived to be 100, Weekley said.

"We're going to try to show intent that that's where the family wanted him buried if his body was ever found," Weekley said.

Those efforts are in the early stages. She just learned of Arnett's case on Thursday afternoon.

"I'm going in all different directions," Weekley said.

"It's the blood relative who makes the decision," said Greg Smith of Parkersburg, a retired Air Force colonel who worked at the Central Identification Laboratory at Hawaii while he was assigned to the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting. The lab identified U.S. soldiers killed in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The chain of remains is the spouse, parents then immediate family, unless there is a will or other document stating where the soldier wanted to be buried, he said. In addition to his brother, Arnett has a cousin in Florida, too.

"Her best bet is go to his brother," Smith said.

Weekley is seeking help from VFWs and American Legions. Others are trying to find blood relatives still living here, she said.

"This is something big for our area, and it's the patriotic thing to do," Weekley said.