'Harry is coming home': WWII airman from Copiague killed in Tokyo prison fire ID'd more than 80 years later

Janet Clement pushed back the tears, exhaled deeply and uttered the words her family waited more than eight decades to hear.

"Harry is coming home."

After years of tedious and methodical archival work by a team of forensic anthropologists, the Defense Department's POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced this month it had positively identified the remains of Sgt. Henry "Harry" Younge, of Copiague, one of 62 U.S. airmen killed in a Tokyo prison fire before the end of World War II.

In 2019, Clement, a retired elementary school teacher from Richmond, Virginia, made a deathbed promise to her 96-year-old mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Clement, that she would bring home her brother’s remains and give him a proper goodbye.

"You never want to disappoint your mom," Clement said in an interview after learning that the uncle she'd never met had been positively identified. "There is an unbelievable sense of joy. I know a lot of people won't understand that and maybe look at it only from the direction of sadness. But I really feel that it's uniting. ... There is jubilation in sharing the joy that Harry is coming home."

Alec Christensen, head of the Tokyo Prison Fire Project, said the remains of five of the 37 previously unknown airmen — who were disinterred in 2022 from a U.S. military cemetery in the Philippines and brought to a laboratory in Hawaii for examination — have been positively identified, including Younge on Aug. 14.

"It's immensely satisfying" to make a positive identification, Christensen, who has worked for DPAA since 2002, said in an interview Monday. "I've devoted my career to doing this because this is the most fulfilling job I can conceive of."

The radio broadcast that never was

A 1943 Amityville High School graduate and skilled trumpet player, Younge was the third child and only son of Florence and Lawrence Younge, who also had three daughters.

Younge entered the military in August 1943 and was assigned to the Air Force, then part of the Army, where he eventually became a tail gunner in a B-29.

His squadron was sent to the Pacific, where it arrived in the Mariana Islands in early 1945, six months after U.S. forces captured Japanese-held Saipan, Tinian and Guam.

In letters home to his family, Younge told how his crewmates would call out their favorite tunes for him to play on his ever-present trumpet during long flights over the open ocean, Clement said.

In April 1945, Younge was set to be interviewed live on Eddie Cantor’s popular NBC national radio broadcast from an island in the Pacific Ocean. A war correspondent had written a story about the 20-year-old trumpet player from Suffolk County who'd entertained crewmates in flight with his instrument.

Younge's parents and sisters were invited to Cantor’s Manhattan studio for the show, but shortly before the broadcast, they were informed Younge wasn’t available for the interview. No details were provided.

The family learned that on April 16, 1945, Younge's B-29 Superfortress was shot down during a nighttime mission over Kawasaki, Japan. Six members of his crew died, while five others, including Younge, bailed out safely but were captured and taken to the Tokyo Military Prison.

On May 25, 1945, the United States conducted one of the largest air raids of the war against Tokyo.

The bombs, records show, ignited a fire that spread to the prison, where all 62 U.S. prisoners of war, who were to be tried under Japan’s "Enemy Airman’s Act," died. Younge's body, the family was told by military officials, was "non-recoverable."

The badly burned bodies were initially buried in a mass grave on the prison grounds, but less than a year later the remains were excavated by U.S. officials.

The American Graves Registration Service was able to identify 25 of the airmen — four of whom were later buried in Long Island National Cemetery at Pinelawn — while the rest, including Younge, were interred as "unknowns" at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

'A big mystery that's still out there to be solved'

The families of the remaining unidentified U.S. servicemen would wait decades before more was known about what happened to their loved ones.

But in spring 2022, following fierce advocacy by many families, DPAA disinterred the unidentified remains.

Using modern DNA analysis, scientists began the painstaking process of attempting to identify the airmen, comparing family DNA samples with the highly degraded skeletal and dental specimens — a process made even more difficult as the remains were often co-mingled.

While a handful of families received the news they'd waited generations to hear, dozens of others continue to bide.

Michael Krehl, a retired masonry contractor from Florida who lived in Centerport in the early 1980s, sparked the initial effort to identify the airmen, including his maternal grandfather, Sgt. Leonard McNeil.

After years of waiting, Krehl and several other families are calling on the Defense Department to re-excavate the site of the former prison, which is near an elementary school and Olympic-size soccer field in Tokyo. The site, local officials have said, could be redeveloped in the coming years.

"There's a big mystery that's still out there to be solved," said Krehl, who believes that other remains are likely still on site. "We've got a great opportunity here, if we can just rattle enough cages and get enough people interested."

Christensen, though, said he's "fairly confident that what was recovered from the mass grave were all of the remains," although he's open to the idea that bodies could have been buried elsewhere on the site.

"I don't believe an excavation of that mass grave would uncover more," he said.

While Krehl and other families continue their quest for closure, Clement and the rest of her family expect to receive a full briefing from U.S. Army officials in the coming weeks.

Afterward, Younge's remains will be turned over to the family for funeral arrangements, including a potential burial at Long Island National Cemetery.

"It's going to be an occasion that brings dignity and is reminiscent of the sacrifice that my uncle made for our country," Clement said. "The trimmings might be a little different. But that same sense of recognition and honor is going to be there no matter what."