WANTAGH, NY — On Aug. 24, 1944, John McTigue was co-piloting a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft carrying nine crewmembers. The plane was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire and crashed near Merseburg, Germany. German troops took four surviving crew members prisoner and five, including 22-year-old McTigue, died in the crash.
McTigue’s remains were said to have been buried at the Leipzig-Lindenthal Cemetery, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The following year, three sets of remains were recovered from the cemetery. One was identified as belonging to the bombardier. The other two were designated as unknown remains.
In 1947, the remains were tested again and determined to actually contain three sets of remains. They were still unidentifiable and were interred at St. Avold Cemetery and Margraten Cemetery, presently known as the Netherlands American Cemetery, where they remained for decades.
Then in 2017, officials disinterred the unknown remains and sent them for lab tests. Based on the results and contextual clues, some remains were separated and identified in April 2019 as that of Second Lieutenant McTigue.
On Sunday, family members, veterans and community members honored McTigue at a wake in Wantagh, Newsday reported. More than 70 people reportedly honored him at the Charles J. O’Shea Funeral Home.
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His 92-year-old brother, Thomas McTigue, told the newspaper he had always hoped the remains would be identified, and that he “just wanted to live long enough to see it happen.”
McTigue was to be buried Monday in Woodside.
More than 400,000 Americas died during World War II out of the 16 million who served. Over 72,000 service members’ remains unaccounted for from the war, and about 30,000 were assessed as possibly recoverable.
McTigue’s name has been recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial site in Hombourg, Belgium, along with the others missing from WWII. Interred as an “unknown,” McTigue’s grave was maintained for 70 years. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.