Remains of CT soldier killed in World War II identified eight decades later

A Connecticut soldier killed in a bombing raid in Southeast Asia more than 80 years ago has been identified.

Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Frank J. Tedone, 23, of Hartford, was killed in 1943 when his B-24 bomber was shot down over Myanmar, formerly Burma. The plane was reportedly hit by anti-aircraft fire before bursting into flames and falling into the clouds, pursued by several enemy fighters.

The bomber never returned to its base. All other crew members were considered missing along with the aircraft.

On Wednesday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), a federal agency that handles the recovery of the remains of missing American soldiers, announced that it had identified Tedone’s remains after a search that included records and DNA analysis.

The search for Tedone began in 1947, when the American Grave Registration Service recovered the remains of what were believed to be eight people killed in an earlier B-24 crash near Yodayadet, Burma.

“According to local witnesses, there were no survivors in this aircraft loss and Japanese forces had instructed villagers to bury the remains in two large graves,” the DPAA said in a statement.

When the remains could not be identified, they were buried as “unknowns” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Honolulu.

They stayed there for almost 80 years.

But in 2019, federal officials received a request to exhume some of those remains in an attempt to link them to other fallen soldiers from southern Burma.

“The family was involved and had already provided DNA reference samples,” Sean Everette, a DPAA spokesman, said in an interview Thursday.

“We need to get those family reference samples and be fairly confident that we will get a positive identification when we exhume the remains to get Department of Defense permission,” he said.

After receiving the samples, the DPAA said it sent the remains to the military court’s laboratory for DNA analysis. Dental and military records were also used.

Identifying decades-old remains of people killed in combat can be difficult, Everette said.

“Some of these remains are so badly destroyed that the DNA is almost related to any Neanderthal DNA that may have been found,” Everette said.

To help, investigators can also analyze old chest X-rays (human collarbones are as unique as fingerprints) and examine radioisotopes found in remains, “which can tell us where this person came from,” Everette said. “So we’ll know if this person came from Southeast Asia, where they grew up eating mostly rice? Or did they come from the United States, where they grew up eating mostly corn?”

“We use all possible technologies when possible,” Everette said, “to achieve positive identification and then return the soldiers to their families.”

After Tedone was declared missing, his name was engraved on the Philippines’ missing persons memorial plaques. A rosette will now be placed next to his name to indicate he has been found, military officials said.

According to a 1940s Hartford Courant article, Tedone was a graduate of East Hartford High School.

Before joining the military, he worked at the Cushman Chuck Company.

According to DPAA, Tedone will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, but the date has not yet been set.