Philadelphia Airman declared MIA in WWII accounted for nearly 82 years later

(WPHL) — An Airman from Philadelphia, killed during World War II and declared missing in action, is accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Friday.

On August 3, 1943, U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Henry J. Carlin, 27, served as the navigator of a B-25C “Mitchell” bomber on a low-altitude bombing raid in Meiktila, Burma. While carrying out the attack, his aircraft crashed. Six people were on board, and only two survived. Japanese forces captured the survivors, and the remaining four were killed, including Carlin. He was declared missing in action, as his remains were not recovered after the war.

According to the DPAA, the American Grave Registration Service recovered four sets of remains in 1947 from a common grave near the village of Kyunpobin, Burma. Local witnesses said the remains came from an “American crash.” Since the remains could not be identified at the time, they were interred as Unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 2022, 75 years later, all four sets of remains were exhumed for analysis, following approval by the Department of Defense. To identify Carlin’s remains, DPAA scientists used dental, anthropological, and isotope analysis. Additional testing from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis.

Carlin’s name, along with others missing from World War II, is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. The DPAA announced that a rosette will be placed next to Carlin’s name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Carlin will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in May 2026.