The World War II pilot represented 82 years after being accredited with Airman savings

A World War II pilot who was remembered for helping other members of the service to survive the plane crash that killed him has been counted, military officers said this week.

The Army Forces of the 1st Lieutenant Charles W. McCook, 23, of Georgetown, Texas, was a member of the 22nd Bombing Squad (medium), 341º Bombing Group (Medium), 10th Air Force during World War II, said the Pow/Mia Defense Accounting Agency in a press release. Before joining the army, McCook had graduated from the University of Southern Southwestern and wine from a family of pilots, according to local newspapers clusters gathered by the DPAA.

McCook, nicknamed “Woody”, served in China and Burma, according to newspapers. He was one of the 20 officers and enlisted men accredited by a mission that air supplies to allied forces fighting Japanese troops in northern Burma. During his service, McCook received the aerial medal and the distinguished Flying Cross, according to newspaper cuts.

On August 3, 1943, McCook was the armor cenor in the “Mitchell” B-25C, making a low altitude bombardment in Meiktila, Burma, said the DPAA. The raid was aimed at aiming at the Meiktila dam and nearby Japanese barracks, according to a newspaper cut.

The plane crashed during the mission. McCook and three others aboard the plane died, but two men survived. One of the survivors, identified in newspaper cuts such as the Sergeant. John Boyd said the plane had been beaten by an explosive gas peel while flying at low altitude. McCook, who recalled Boyd “as the best in the business”, was able to take the plane damaged to an altitude that allowed Boyd and the other soldier surviving parachute from the ship before he crashed.

Boyd said this action allowed him to survive. He and the other soldier were taken captive by Japanese forces, said the DPAA. Boyd spent two years as a prisoner in Ragoon before being released, according to newspaper clippings.

The remains of McCook were not recovered. It was finally included as missing in action. In 1947, after World War II finished, the American Tombs Registry Service recovered four series of remains of a common grave near a village in Burma, said the DPAA.

The locals said that the four series of remains, designated X-282a-D, were from an “American accident,” said the DPAA. But the remains were not identified at that time. They were buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or the PunchBowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The name of McCook was included in the walls of the disappeared in the cemetery and memorial of Manila American in the Philippines.

In January 2022, the DPAA disinterproved the four sets of remains and took To the agency laboratory. Dental, anthropological and isotope analysis were performed. Other military agencies used mitochondrial DNA analysis and genome sequencing data to help identify the remains. The processes allowed the DPAA to identify one of the sets of remains as belonging to McCook.

Now that McCook has been counted, a rosette has been placed next to his name on the walls of the disappeared. He will be buried in his hometown in August 2025, said the DPAA.

• Second World War
• United States Air Force
• United States military
• Philippines
• Japan