World War II pilot to be laid to rest with full military honors in Florida

HASTINGS, Fla — After his remains were identified in June, Lt. j.g. Ralph Cornelius Dupont, a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, will be laid to rest with full military honors Sunday in Hastings, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office.

Dupont, who joined the Navy in Florida, served in Fighter Squadron 18 (VF-18) during WWII, SJSO said.

On Oct. 12, 1944, Dupont piloted an F6F-5 Hellcat during the first day of the major strike against Formosa (present-day Taiwan). The carrier planes encountered several enemy fighters over the target and three of the F65 aircrafts were shot down, SJSO said.

During post-war searches, SJSO said Dupont was not accounted for, as he was eventually declared “non-recoverable.”

But in 2023, SJSO said Dupont’s family shared research with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), believing that there was a correlation between Dupont and a previously unidentified set of remains recovered in 1946, three miles from Taien Airfield in Taiwan.

SJSO said the remains had been buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.

“Following further investigation, DPAA exhumed the remains from the Punchbowl on April 6, 2025, and accessioned them into the DPAA Laboratory for forensic analysis,” SJSO told First Coast News.

On June 10, 2025, through laboratory analysis and “total circumstantial evidence,” SJSO said DPAA confirmed the remains to be Dupont’s.

He is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines, DPAA said on its website.

Dupont’s funeral will be held at Pellicer Creek Cemetery at 2 p.m. Sunday, exactly 81 years after his death in combat.