An airman from Massachusetts who was shot down over Romania during World War II has been accounted for, the US military said yesterday.
US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Charles G. McMackin, 26, was accounted for in August, according to a statement from the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency, but the announcement was not made until Wednesday because his family was only recently briefed on the situation.
The DPAA said Staff Sergeant McMackin was from Boston, but according to news clippings from the time of his death, he was from Revere, just north of Boston.
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Staff Sergeant McMackin was the bombardier on a B-24 Liberator that participated in Operation Tidal Wave on August 1, 1943, a massive bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, Romania, considered crucial to the Nazi war effort, according to the DPAA.
His plane crashed as a result of enemy anti-aircraft fire, and his remains were not identified following the war.
Remains of American personnel that could not be identified were buried in a cemetery in Romania, and later moved to a cemetery in Belgium.
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The remains were exhumed in 2017 and sent to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.
Staff Sergeant McMackin’s remains were identified using dental and anthropological analysis, as well as mitochondrial DNA analysis.
He will be buried April 14 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
