Remains of LI Army pilot missing since 1944 identified

Lt. Joseph J. Auld - then a recently married college dropout motivated to become an Army pilot by the attack on Pearl Harbor - was 25 years old when his cargo plane disappeared in Burma on May 23, 1944.

Nearly 60 years after he was declared missing in action, long after Auld's family had given up ever seeing the Floral Park native again, residents of the northern mountains of Myanmar, then called Burma, found a crash site and notified authorities. It was Auld's plane, which went down while he was transporting supplies to American troops.

It would take U.S. Department of Defense officials until 2009 to identify - through DNA testing on six teeth and three small bones found in the wreckage - the remains of Auld and another crewman.

And Monday in Auld's hometown - on the first Memorial Day since his remains were positively identified - officials of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs plan to present Auld's family with a Presidential Memorial Certificate. The engraved certificate, signed by President Barack Obama honors the memory of deceased veterans.

Auld's name is read every year at a Memorial Day ceremony in Floral Park. But today's services will feel different, said Helen McGowan, 88, the widow of Auld's cousin Howard and one of few surviving family members.

"It'll put some closure to all this," McGowan said.

Auld's remains are scheduled to be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in July.

McGowan said Monday will be a day to finally properly recognize the kid they all called "Joey." She said she still remembers when the family was notified that Auld's plane had gone down, "and we all hoped and prayed that he would have survived, but as the years went on, we realized it wasn't going to happen."

Auld, a graduate of Our Lady of Victory Elementary School and Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park, was flying through the China-Burma-India theater in World War II when the plane went down, said William Corbett, a past president of the Floral Park American Legion. Auld's diary indicates that in the days leading up to the crash, he was worried about flying through storms and squalls in the region.

"The only thing we're sweating out is the weather, which is treacherous at time," he wrote in the diary, which, with his other belongings, was sent to his family after he went missing.

Mary Anne McGowan of Bayside, whose father, Frank, was Auld's cousin, said today's events will be "bittersweet." She said it is appropriate that Auld is being recognized on the first Memorial Day since his remains were identified.

"It's a great thing that he's being honored," she said.

Before joining the Army, Auld attended some technical college and worked as a runner on Wall Street, family members said. He was also passionate about tennis and cared for his sick mother before entering the service.

Auld did not have children and his wife, Evelyn, has died, family members said.

"It's the first Memorial Day that we are celebrating it, that we are aware of it," referring to the identification, said Patrice McGowan of Massapequa, daughter of Auld's cousin Howard McGowan. "We always had a connection to Memorial Day. But now it's more realistic."

The Floral Park Memorial Day service is at 11 a.m. at Memorial Park, at the corner of Tulip and Plainfield avenues. A 10 a.m. parade will precede the ceremonies.