WASHINGTON D.C. – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has announced that an Army Airman, declared missing in action after a 1943 plane crash during World War 2, has been accounted for.
Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Charles W. McCook, 23, of Georgetown, Texas, was killed on Aug. 3, 1943.
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The agency says McCook was serving as the Armor-Gunner of a B-25C “Mitchell” on a low-altitude bombing raid in Meiktila, Burma, when the bomber crashed.
Of the six people onboard the aircraft, only two survived and were captured by Japanese forces. The remaining four, including McCook, were killed.
At the time, McCook was a member of 22nd Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 341st Bombardment Group (Medium), 10th Air Force.
McCook’s remains were not recovered until after the war and were unable to be identified for decades. The Department of Defense announced his remains were identified on April 18, 2025.
In 1947 the American Grave Registration Service (AGRS) recovered four sets of remains, later designated X-282A-D, from a common grave near the village of Kyunpobin, Burma. According to local witnesses, the remains came from an “American crash”. The remains could not be identified at the time and were interred as Unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
In January 2022, after the Department of Defense approved DPAA’s disinterment request, all four sets of remains were exhumed from the Punchbowl and accessioned into the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify McCook’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental, anthropological, and isotope analysis. Additionally, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis and mitochondrial genome sequencing data
McCook’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with the others missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
McCook will be buried in his hometown of Georgetown, Texas in August.