The US military has exhumed the remains of an unidentified Second World War serviceman, known as X-3, from Sitka National Cemetery in Alaska. Investigators believe he may be Second Lieutenant Eugene Christensen, and an identification would offer long-awaited answers to his family while illustrating the continuing effort to account for personnel missing from past conflicts.

Christensen, a 21-year-old Army Air Forces officer from Nebraska, was believed to have died in a 1942 aircraft crash during the Aleutian Islands campaign. The Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency will use historical records, forensic examination and DNA testing; an official identification could take up to four years. More than 81,000 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War and Cold War.