DOVER, Del. (AP) – The remains of 11 U.S. servicemen killed in action when their bomber crashed on the Pacific island of New Guinea during World War II have been identified and will be will be returned to their families for burial, Pentagon officials said Friday.

Two Massachusetts airmen, 2nd Lt. Ronald F. Ward of Cambridge and 2nd Lt. Kenneth L. Cassidy of Worcester, were among them.

The men were members of the Army Air Forces 43rd Bomber Group, 63rd Bomber Squadron. They were listed as missing after their B-24 Liberator, “The Swan,” piloted by Capt. Robert Coleman of Wilmington, Del., failed to return from a mission on Dec. 3, 1943. The crew had departed Dobodura, New Guinea, on a reconnaissance mission over New Hanover Island in the Bismarck Sea. They reported dropping their bombs on target but, despite several radio contacts with their base, never returned.

“This is going to be such a closure for my family,” said Ward’s sister, Kathleen Lund, who lives near Boston.

Lund said her brother was a gifted student with a wry sense of humor who won a history prize in high school and was rewarded with a trip to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. She said while her brother’s individual remains were not positively identified, searchers did find two rings at the crash site, including his high school graduation ring.

The remains of the airmen were recovered between 2004 and 2007 after members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, located and excavated a site where wreckage had been spotted by native hunters four years earlier.

Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, said the 11 crewmen were identified either through biological or circumstantial evidence. The Army’s identification process was completed in September after an independent outside review, and the briefing of families was completed late last month, Greer said.

Officials said searchers recovered some crew-related artifacts, including identification tags. Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA and dental records to positively identify some of the remains, the military said.

“In a larger group like this, there is always hundreds of skeletal fragments that could not be individually identified. Those are collected in a group and placed in a single casket,” Greer said.

Greer said that a group casket would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery and marked by a headstone with all 11 names.

He the families of five crewmen, including Cassidy, whose remains were positively identified through DNA or other biological means will be given the option of having separate caskets buried at Arlington near the group casket.

“We’re waiting for that date for that ceremony,” said Cassidy’s son, Ken Belisle, 63, of Jacksonville, Fla. He said he never knew his father, who died before he was born.

A funeral for Tech. Sgt. Robert C. Morgan, of Flint, Mich., was held Thursday in Holly, Mich., followed by burial at Great Lakes National Cemetery.

Donald Morgan of Flushing, Mich., who was 11 years old when his brother died, described him as “a great guy” who wanted to go to college and study engineering.

Morgan said his brother’s remains were identified through analysis of a piece of bone less than an inch long.

“There was very little human remains left,” Morgan said, adding that his brother’s remains may also be included in the group ceremony at Arlington, which he expects to be held in June or July.

The other crewmen were identified as: 1st Lt. George E. Wallinder of San Antonio; 2nd Lt. Irving Schechner, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Tech. Sgt. William L. Fraser, of Maplewood, Mo.; Tech. Sgt. Paul Miecias, of Piscataway, N.J.; Staff Sgt. Albert J. Caruso, of Kearny, N.J.; Staff Sgt. Robert E. Frank, of Plainfield, N.J., and Pvt. Joseph Thompson, of Compton, Calif.

AP-ES-04-25-08 2034EDT