On February 14, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Pvt. Mack Kidd, missing from World War II.
Kidd entered the U.S. Army from West Virginia and served with the 5307th Composite Unit. On May 17, 1944, the 5307th Composite Unit, also known as Merrill's Marauders, began an assault on a Japanese-held airfield in Myitkyina, Burma. While the airfield was quickly captured, the town of Myitkyina had been reinforced with enemy troops and could not be immediately taken. Over the next three months, Merrill's Marauders engaged in a series of back-and-forth battles with the Japanese troops in Myitkyina. Kidd was killed in action on July 12, 1944, during this battle to control Myitkyina. The remains of servicemen killed during the battle were buried in at least eight different temporary cemeteries and numerous isolated burial locations. Eventually, all known burials were concentrated into the U.S. Military Cemetery at Myitkyina, including the remains of those who were not identified. In January and February 1946, all of the remains at the U.S. Military Cemetery were disinterred and transferred to the U.S. Military Cemetery at Kalaikunda, India. The exhumation of the U.S. Military Cemetery at Kalaikunda was conducted in September and October 1947. Remains that could not be identified were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Honolulu as Unknowns. Kidd's remains were not among those recovered, and he was declared unrecoverable in August 1950. In 2018, DPAA began exhuming the World War II Unknowns in the NMCP believed to be associated with the Battle of Myitkyina. In September 2021, one set of these unknown remains was transferred to the DPAA laboratory for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established the remains as those of Kidd.
