Remains of Floral Park man killed in WWII to be buried

More than 66 years after his cargo plane disappeared in Burma during World War II, Floral Park Airman Lt. Joseph J. Auld will Thursday receive one of the highest honors the country bestows on servicemen - burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Auld, a 25-year-old first lieutenant at the time of his death, was one of seven men aboard an Army plane that went missing during an airdrop supply mission to Myitkyina, Burma, on May 23, 1944. A missionary in the mountains of what is now called Myanmar found the wreckage of the plane nearly 60 years later, and federal Department of Defense officials were able to use DNA and dental records to identify the remains of Auld and another crewman last year, federal sources said.

All seven men will be honored with a burial Thursday at Arlington, a spokeswoman for the cemetery said.

While individual remains were not identifiable for five of the servicemen, military records show that they were in the plane when it went down, said a spokesman for the federal Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

During Thursday's services, an Army band will play, two coffins will be buried - one with Auld's remains and one representing the entire crew - and a military flyover will honor the servicemen, sources said.

Mary Anne McGowan, of Bayside, one of a group of family members who will attend the service, said the ceremony will be a fitting tribute to Auld, who never got a proper burial.

"I'm really glad that this is happening, and it's really put me in touch with what it means to go over there to a foreign land and give your all," said McGowan, whose father was Auld's cousin.

Arlington National Cemetery, just outside Washington, D.C., is the site of about 6,900 burials each year.

The Army consulted with the families of the seven servicemen whose remains were found in Myanmar before scheduling Thursday's burial in Arlington, said Larry Greer, spokesman for the federal Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

Auld will be buried individually at his family's request, Greer said.

Greer said group remains are buried in Arlington because it is "the highest honor" for the soldiers.

Auld attended Our Lady of Victory Elementary School and Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park before the Pearl Harbor bombing motivated him to join the military, family members have said. James E. Rhatigan, a Floral Park trustee who will attend Thursday's service, said the burial "shows the high regard the military places on their casualties."

Mary Anne McGowan agreed.

"It's sad that people who knew him . . . never knew he would be honored like this," she said. "But this is a great thing for the veterans of any war."