A Connecticut soldier who was killed in Southeast Asia on a bombing mission more than 80 years ago has been identified.
Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Frank J. Tedone, 23, of Hartford, was killed in 1943 when his B-24 bomber was shot down over Myanmar, formerly Burma. The plane reportedly was hit by anti-aircraft fire before bursting into flames and falling into the clouds, tailed by several enemy fighter planes.
The bomber never returned to its base. All other crew members were reported lost with the aircraft.
On Wednesday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), a federal agency that works to recover the remains of lost American soldiers, announced it had identified Tedone’s remains following a search that included records and DNA analysis.
The quest to recover Tedone began in 1947 when the American Grave Registration Service recovered the remains of what were believed to be eight people who died in a prior B-24 crash near Yodayadet, Burma.
“According to local witnesses, there were no survivors from this aviation loss and Japanese forces had instructed local villagers to bury the remains in two large graves,” according to a DPAA statement.
When the remains could not be identified, they were buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Honolulu.
There, they sat for nearly 80 years.
But in 2019, federal officials received a request to disinter some of those remains, based on efforts to associate them with other lost soldiers from southern Burma.
“The family was involved, and they had already given DNA family reference samples,” Sean Everette, a spokesperson with the DPAA, said in an interview Thursday.
“We have to get these family reference samples and be fairly sure that we are going to be able to get a positive ID if we disinter the remains to get permission from the Department of Defense,” he said.
After obtaining the samples, the DPAA said it sent the remains to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner’s laboratory for DNA analysis. Dental and military records were also consulted.
The work of identifying decades-old remains killed in combat can be difficult, Everette said.
“Some of these remains are so degraded that … the DNA is almost akin to Neanderthal DNA that may be found,” Everette said.
To help, investigators can also analyze old chest X-rays (human collar bones are unique like fingerprints) and can examine radioisotopes found in remains “that can tell us where that person was from,” Everette said. “It lets us know, is this person from southeast Asia, where they were primarily raised on a rice-based diet? Or are they from the United States, where they were primarily raised on a corn-based diet?”
“We use all of these different kinds of technology when applicable,” Everette said, “to be able to get to a positive ID so we can then return those service members to their family.”
After being declared missing in action, Tedone’s name was inscribed on the Walls of the Missing at a memorial in the Philippines. A rosette will now be placed next to his name to indicate he has been found, military officials said.
Tedone was a graduate of East Hartford High School, according to a 1940s article in the Hartford Courant.
Prior to entering the military, he worked at the Cushman Chuck Company.
The DPAA says Tedone will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, although the date has yet to be determined.
