The US Embassy in Bangkok has expressed gratitude to Thailand for its cooperation in locating and identifying the remains of an American pilot who went missing during World War II, bringing closure to a mystery that lasted more than 80 years.
In a Facebook post on Monday, the embassy said the identification fulfilled the US pledge to "leave no one behind".
It announced that the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) officially identified the body as First Lieutenant Franklin McKinney, whose aircraft crashed in Lampang during a reconnaissance mission in 1944.
The embassy thanked the government, local authorities in Lampang, and archaeologists and students from Thammasat University for collaborating with the DPAA and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to help bring McKinney home.
McKinney had successfully photo- graphed Lampang from an F-5E aircraft on Sept 26, 1944, before returning to China. However, during another reconnaissance mission over Myanmar and northern Thailand on Nov 5, he failed to return, prompting a search that remained unresolved for decades.
The Thammasat University Museum, which joined the excavation alongside Thammasat and Silpakorn university volunteers, said the identification reflected humanitarian and academic cooperation between the two nations.
