Biden says military couldn’t recover uncle’s remains during World War II because ‘there were a lot of cannibals’ in New Guinea

President Joe Biden twice suggested Wednesday that the United States was unable to recover the remains of his uncle Ambrose Finnegan after Finnegan’s plane crashed near New Guinea during World War II , “because there were a lot of cannibals” in the region.

Biden’s account of his uncle’s death — and possible cannibalization — differs from the account released by the Defense POW/MIA accounting agency, which claims that Finnegan’s plane, an A-20 Havoc bound for New York, Guinea on a courier flight, was “forced to land”. the ocean” off the island “for unknown reasons”.

“And my uncle, they called him – Ambrose, they called him Bosie… and he became an Army Air Corps, before the Air Force came, he flew these single-engine planes as reconnaissance over— over war zones,” Biden said during a speech at the press conference. USW headquarters in Pittsburgh. “And he was shot in New Guinea, and they never found his body because there were a lot of cannibals – for real – in that part of New Guinea.”

The president also told the story before leaving Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier in the day.

There was actually documented cannibalism in the area in the mid-20th century.

But the DPAA entry for Finnegan states that three men “failed to extricate themselves from the sinking wreck and were lost in the accident”, and that an aerial search the next day “found no no trace of the missing plane or lost crew members.” Another crew member survived the crash, according to the report.

Biden’s claim — that the military ultimately was unable to recover Finnegan’s remains — appears to be true. He is commemorated on the walls of the fallen at the American Cemetery in Manila, Philippines. During his trip to Pennsylvania earlier Wednesday, Biden visited a veterans memorial in Scranton, where he paid tribute to his uncle, who is also memorialized at the site.

“President Biden is proud of the uniformed service of his uncle, who lost his life when the military plane he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea,” said Wednesday White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told CNN. “The president highlighted his uncle’s story in pleading for upholding our ‘sacred commitment…to equip those we send to war and to care for them and their families when they return home’ , and reiterating that the last thing American veterans We are “suckers” or “losers”.

The White House did not provide additional details about Biden’s claim that cannibals prevented the recovery of Finnegan’s remains.

Biden made the comments during parts of his remarks criticizing former President Donald Trump over a 2020 report that claimed he disparaged U.S. service members killed in action and chose to skip a ceremony in honor of veterans. Trump disputed this information, although former White House chief of staff John Kelly later corroborated the information to CNN’s Jake Tapper.

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