After 80 years of being missing in action, the remains of World War II soldier 2nd Lt. John E. McLauchlen Jr. from Detroit have been identified. His plane was shot down on a bombing mission to the Insein Railroad Yard north of Rangoon, Burma on Dec. 1, 1943. Witnesses reported that his aircraft entered a steep dive and disappeared below the clouds, never to be heard from again. The crew was declared missing in action and their remains were not recovered during the war.
In 1947, the remains of eight people involved in a B-24 Liberator crash in Burma were recovered by the American Grave Registration Service. These remains, known as Unknowns X-505A-H, were interred as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. In October 2020, after a family request, the remains were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. Through anthropological and mtDNA analysis, McLauchlen’s remains were identified and accounted for on Jan. 25, 2024.
Now, after a long journey to bring closure to his family, 2nd Lt. John E
