The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape, criticized US President Joe Biden on Sunday (21) for offending his country, located in Oceania, after the Democrat suggested that his uncle, a WWII veteran killed in a plane crash, he would have been devoured by cannibals, without any proof.
Marape stated that “President Biden's comments may have been a slip”, however, “his country does not deserve to be labeled like that”.
The Democrat made the statement on April 17 during a speech at a memorial in Pennsylvania. At the time, he said that four family members fought in World War II and one of them was Ambrose Finnegan, known as “Uncle Bosie” in his family. The Democrat stated that his uncle was flying single-engine planes at the time of the conflict and, in one of the reconnaissance operations in the territory of New Guinea, an aircraft in which he and other soldiers were traveling ended up crashing into the sea.
“He had volunteered, because someone couldn't go, and he was shot down in an area where, at the time, there were a lot of cannibals in New Guinea. They never found his body,” Biden said in the speech.
Despite the Democrat's version, the news agency AP checked military records from that time that describe the incident differently. According to records, Finnegan was a passenger on a Douglas A-20 Havoc transport aircraft that crashed into the sea off Papua New Guinea on May 14, 1944. The American Defense record does not mention any investigation into cannibalism.
A day after the president's comment, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed that Finnegan died after the military plane he was traveling in crashed into the Pacific Ocean and not onto dry land.
Papua New Guinea's prime minister then urged the American government to investigate “the cleanup of World War II remains so that the truth about missing veterans like Ambrose Finnegan can be clarified.”
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