By ZEKE MILLER (AP White House Correspondent)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden misspoke about his uncle’s death in World War II as he honored the man’s wartime service and criticized Donald Trump's suitability as commander in chief.
During his time in Pittsburgh, Biden talked about his uncle, 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., to point out the difference from reports that Trump, while president, had insulted fallen service members.
Biden said Finnegan, his mother's brother, was shot down in New Guinea and his body was never found, mentioning that there used to be cannibals in the area. However, the official record of missing service members does not mention cannibals being involved in Finnegan’s death.
The U.S. government’s records do not state that cannibals were a factor in Finnegan’s death.
“We have a tradition in my family my grandfather started,” said Biden, a toddler at the time of his uncle’s death in 1944. “When you visit a gravesite of a family member — it’s going to sound strange to you — but you say three Hail Marys. And that’s what I was doing at the site.”
Referring to Trump, Biden said, “That man doesn’t deserve to have been the commander in chief for my son, my uncle.”
Biden’s elder son, Beau, died in 2015 of brain cancer, which the president believes was connected to his son’s yearlong deployment in Iraq, where the military used burn pits to dispose of waste.
Some former Trump officials have claimed the then-president insulted fallen service members as “suckers” and “losers” when he did not want to travel in 2018 to a cemetery for American war dead in France. Trump denied the allegation, asking, “What animal would say such a thing?”
According to the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Biden’s uncle, known by the family as “Bosie,” died on May 14, 1944, while a passenger on an Army Air Forces plane that, “for unknown reasons,” was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea. “Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard,” the agency states in its listing of Finnegan. “Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash.”
The agency said Finnegan was a passenger on the plane when it was lost. “He has not been associated with any remains recovered from the area after the war and is still unaccounted-for,” according to the agency.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not address the discrepancy between the agency’s records and Biden’s account when he issued a statement on the matter.
“President Biden is proud of his uncle’s service in uniform,“ Bates said, adding Finnegan ”lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.”
Biden “highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our ‘sacred commitment … to equip those we send to war and take care of them and their families when they come home,’ and as he reiterated that the last thing American veterans are is ‘suckers’ or ‘losers.’”
The Democratic president got the timing wrong when talking about when his uncles joined the military. He said they joined in June 1944, the day after D-Day, but they actually joined weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
After Finnegan’s death, a local newspaper printed a message from Gen. Douglas MacArthur offering condolences to Finnegan’s family:
“Dear Mr. Finnegan: I am deeply sorry for the loss of your son, Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., while serving his country. You can find some comfort in knowing that he died while representing our beloved country, fighting in a mission that will create a better world for everyone. Sincerely, Douglas MacArthur.”
In his 2008 book “Promises to Keep,” Biden briefly mentioned his uncle, calling him a pilot who was killed in New Guinea.
