WWII Army Air Forces Pilot’s Remains Identified After 8 Decades

The remains of 2nd Lt. John E. McLauchlen Jr., an Army Air Forces pilot from Detroit, have been identified eight decades after he went missing during a bombing mission in Southeast Asia during World War II. McLauchlen’s plane was reportedly hit by anti-aircraft fire on December 1, 1943, and his crew members were declared missing in action. In 1947, the remains of eight individuals involved in a potential B-24 Liberator crash were recovered in present-day Myanmar and interred as unknowns in Honolulu. Through anthropological analysis, circumstantial and material evidence, and DNA analysis, one set of those remains was identified as McLauchlen’s in January 2023.

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