The Pentagon's POW/Missing Personnel Office says the remains of two World War II Marines from Louisiana and Missouri will be buried Friday with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
Nineteen-year-old Staff Sgt. Thomas Meek of Lisbon, La., and 23-year-old Capt. Henry White, of Kansas City, died when their SBD-4 Dauntless dive bomber crashed in what is now Vanuatu during a night training flight on July 21, 1943.
The plane was reported as crashed on a coral cliff on Mavea Island. An investigation in 1947 did not recover any remains. One last year found human remains, a captain's bars and Meek's military ID tag.
Because no individual identification was possible, the men will be buried in a single casket.