Cousin: Upstate NY burial likely for remains of WWII airman

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A relative of a New York airman whose remains were identified more than 75 years after he died in World War II says his reburial will likely be in a rural upstate cemetery.

Wayne Rogers told The Associated Press on Monday that the family would like to inter the remains of his first cousin, Vincent J. Rogers Jr., in the family plot in a cemetery in Willing, New York. Details of the reburial are still being worked out with Pentagon officials.

Vincent Rogers was 21 when he and six other men were killed when their B-24 bomber crashed after taking off from an airfield on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa in January 1944.

The Pentagon announced last week that Vincent Rogers’ remains had been identified after being located in 2017.

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This story has been corrected to show the crash occurred in 1944, not 1943.