Airman lost in World War II accounted for using DNA analysis

BOSTON – An airman from Massachusetts who died during World War II when his plane crashed in Southeast Asia has been accounted for using DNA evidence.

The Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Monday that U.S. Army Air Forces Tech. Sgt. Alfred Sandini, of Marlborough, was accounted for earlier this year using dental, anthropological and DNA analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.

The agency says the 25-year-old Sandini was a radio gunner aboard a B-25C Mitchell bomber that crashed in February 1944, most likely due to enemy anti-aircraft fire in what was then known as French Indochina, and is now Vietnam.

His remains were initially buried at the American Military Cemetery in Kunming, China, before being moved to Schofield Mausoleum in Hawaii. They were disinterred last August and sent to a lab for analysis.