Thai archival find may resolve fate of missing WWII US flyer

By JERRY HARMER and TASSANEE VEJPONGSA
Associated Press

U-TAPAO, Thailand (AP) — The remains of an American airman missing in World War II may be heading home, thanks to a chance discovery of records in flood-threatened archives in Thailand. U.S. and local authorities held a ceremony Wednesday to repatriate remains recovered from a rice field. Laboratory tests will determine what the remains are. But circumstantial evidence has raised expectation a long-lost service member from the U.S. Army Air Forces will be identified. The discovery started with a retired air marshal’s effort to save archives after an air force museum in Bangkok flooded. He found a police officer’s notes about a 1944 plane crash in northern Thailand that matched a U.S. reconnaissance flight where the pilot never returned.