White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday dodged questions about whether President Joe Biden’s uncle was actually eaten by cannibals during World War II.
The president made the bold claim Wednesday during his trip to his birthplace, Scranton, Pennsylvania, and found his uncle’s name, ‘Ambrose Finnegan,’ on the city’s World War II memorial wall.
Biden said Finnegan’s plane was “shot down” even though military records said the plane suffered engine failure, while insisting that his uncle was the pilot of the plane, when he was a passenger.
The president claimed that “Uncle Bosie,” as he was called, “was shot down in an area where there were many cannibals at the time.” They never recovered his body.
Aboard Air Force One on Thursday, reporters tried several times to get Jean-Pierre to acknowledge the heart of the cannibal controversy, which she never did.
On Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not answer questions about the veracity of a story told by President Joe Biden (left): that his late uncle Ambrose Finnegan (right) was eaten by cannibals during the Second World War.
President Joe Biden touches the name of his uncle Ambrose J. Finnegan, Jr., on a wall of a Scranton war memorial Wednesday in Scranton. Biden said Finnegan’s plane was “shot down” even though military records said the plane suffered engine failure.
‘Look, you saw the president. He was incredibly proud of his uncle’s uniformed service. He saw it at the war memorial. “It was incredibly emotional and important for him,” Jean-Pierre said.
“You saw him respond to all of you when you asked him about the moment yesterday, and about his uncle, who lost his life when the military plane he was traveling on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea,” he continued.
Jean-Pierre added that Biden highlighted his uncle’s story to advocate “honoring our sacred commitment to equip those we send to war and care for them and their families when they return home.”
“And since he reiterated that the last thing American veterans are are fools or losers, I wanted to make that clear,” he added, referring to former President Donald Trump, Biden’s opponent in the 2024 general election.
Trump has strongly denied making such comments about American soldiers who died in World War II.
When asked again by a journalist about the veracity of the cannibalistic claim, Jean-Pierre responded: “I mean, look, I don’t have anything beyond what I just laid out.”
But it was a moment of great pride for him. It was incredibly emotional,” he said.
US President Joe Biden visits a war memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania, US, April 17, 2024.
There is no footage of Joe Biden’s uncle’s plane crashing. This photograph shows a Douglas A-20 Havoc medium bomber shot down by anti-aircraft fire during an attack on the Imperial Japanese seaplane base and port facilities at Sekar Bay on 22 July 1944 at Kokas, Dutch New Guinea, East Indies Dutch. .
Local people watch the wounded Americans. and Australian soldiers placed on a row of stretchers. Papua New Guinea, December 1942
And I think we can’t, we can’t forget that moment. And we also can’t forget what it means to be commander in chief, what it means to uplift our service members, what it means to make sure we respect his service, and he made that [contrast] very clear what we saw from the former president,” said Jean-Pierre, attacking Trump again.
When another reporter asked her about the cannibal claims, she closed the brief group, as Air Force One landed.
“Sorry guys, thanks,” he said.
Pentagon records from that time say Finnegan was on a “messenger” flight that suffered engine failure and plunged into the ocean off Papua New Guinea on May 14, 1944.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency report said there was a crew of three and one passenger, and that the plane departed Momote Airfield, Los Negros Island, to take a courier flight to Nadzab Airfield, New Guinea.
The loss of Ambrose Finnegan is detailed in a “missing aircraft” report prepared on March 17, 1944, and preserved in the National Archives.
Marked “Secret,” the War Department report shows that he was not piloting the plane and was a passenger.
Missing Aircrew Report Number 48472D LT AMBROSE J. FINNEGAN
Missing Aircrew Report Number 48472D LT AMBROSE J. FINNEGAN
Missing Aircrew Report Number 48472D LT AMBROSE J. FINNEGAN
There were three “crew” and one “passenger” on board.
Finnegan was listed as a second lieutenant and was a “messenger.”
The three-person crew consisted of a pilot, a gunner and an engineer.
The pilot was 1st Lieutenant Harold R. Prince.
According to the report, the weather was “fair” when the plane crashed and there was “no” evidence to suggest whether or not those on board had survived.
“For unknown reasons, this aircraft was forced to ditch in the ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea,” the report said.
«Both engines failed at low altitude and the nose of the plane hit the water hard.
‘Three men did not make it out of the wreck and were lost in the crash.
‘One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search conducted the next day found no trace of the missing plane or the missing crew members.’
It said that Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan was “the passenger on this Havoc when it was lost.”
The report continued: “He has not been associated with any remains recovered from the area after the war and his whereabouts are still unknown.”
There were also reports in the National Archives filed by pilots who went to search for the missing plane.
A Douglas A-20 ‘Havoc’ light bomber like the one Biden’s uncle carried
President Joe Biden with Pennsylvania Mayor Paige Cognetti visits the Veterans War Memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania
President Joe Biden visits Zummo’s Cafe with Scranton, Pennsylvania Mayor Paige Cognetti
They reported that they “searched the water to the end without any observations” and that “no sightings were made.”
The pilots reported that “no trace of Lieutenant Prince’s plane or crew was found.”
In Scranton, Biden said that when D-Day occurred, ‘the next day, my mother’s four brothers volunteered to join the military. Three of them managed to get there, one of them couldn’t go.
‘Ambrose Finnegan, we called him Uncle Bosie, was shot dead. “He was in the Army Air Corps, before the Air Force existed, he flew those single-engine planes, reconnaissance flights over New Guinea,” the president continued.
“He volunteered because someone couldn’t make it.”
That caused him to be taken down.
In a speech later Wednesday, Biden added: “My Uncle Bosie was a great athlete, I’m told, when he was a kid.”
And it became the Army Air Corps before the Air Force came along. He flew those single-engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones.
“And they shot him to death near Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be a lot of real cannibals in that part of New Guinea.”
Speaking in Scranton, Biden continued: ‘In my family we had a tradition that my grandfather taught us.
‘When you visit the grave of a family member, you say three Hail Marys. That’s what he was doing (at the memorial).
‘My uncle Ambrose Finnegan. Uncle Bosie was a great guy. I never met him.
Biden said as he looked at the monument that he thought of Trump.
“What I was thinking when I was there, when Trump refused to go up to the monument in Paris and said they were a bunch of fools and losers,” he said.
‘To me, that is a very disqualifying statement made by a president. The guys who saved civilization in the 40s are fools and losers.