WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden misstated key details about his uncle’s death in World War II on Wednesday as he honored the man’s war service and said Donald Trump was unworthy to serve as commander in chief.
While in Pittsburgh, Biden spoke about his uncle, 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., aiming to contrast reports that Trump, while president, had called fallen service members “suckers” and “losers.”
Finnegan, the brother of Biden’s mother, “was shot in New Guinea,” Biden said. The president said Finnegan’s body was never recovered and that “there used to be a lot of cannibals” in the area. Biden, who also relayed a version of the story earlier in the day after visiting the monument in Scranton, was unaware of the specifics.
U.S. government records of missing service members do not indicate that Finnegan’s death was due to hostile action, nor that cannibals played a role.
“We have a tradition in my family that my grandfather started,” said Biden, who was a toddler when his uncle died in 1944. “When you visit a relative’s grave – it may sound strange to you – but you say three Hail Marys. And that’s what I did on site.”
Referring to Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Biden said: “That man does not deserve to have been the commander in chief of my son, my uncle.”
Biden’s eldest son, Beau, died in 2015 of brain cancer, which the president has said he believes was related to his son’s years-long deployment to Iraq, where the military used burn pits to remove waste.
Some former Trump officials have alleged that the then-president disparaged fallen service members as “suckers” and “losers” when, they said, he refused to travel to a cemetery for American war dead in France in 2018. Trump denied the accusation, saying, “What animal would say something like that?”
According to the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Biden’s uncle, known to the family as “Bosie,” died on May 14, 1944, while a passenger on an Army Air Forces plane that was forced to close “for unknown reasons.” in the Pacific Ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. “Both engines failed at low altitude and the nose of the aircraft struck the water hard,” the agency said in Finnegan’s listing. “Three men failed to get out of the sinking wreckage and were lost in the crash.”
The agency said Finnegan was a passenger on the plane when it was lost. “He has not been linked to any remains recovered in the area after the war and remains missing,” the agency said.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not address the discrepancy between the agency’s data and Biden’s report when he issued a statement on the matter.
“President Biden is proud of his uncle’s service in uniform,” Bates said, adding that Finnegan “lost his life when the military plane he was in crashed into the Pacific Ocean after taking off near New Guinea.”
Biden “highlighted his uncle’s story as he advocated honoring our “sacred commitment … to equip those we send to war and care for them and their families when they come home,” while reiterating that it last thing American veterans are ‘suckers’ or ‘losers.’”
The Democratic president also misspoke when uncles enlisted in the military, saying they joined in June 1944 “when D-Day happened, the next day,” when in fact they didn’t enlist until weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941.
After Finnegan’s death, a local newspaper published a telegram from General Douglas MacArthur expressing condolences to Finnegan’s family:
“Dear Mr. Finnegan: On the death of your son, Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., while in the service of his country, you have my deepest sympathy. Your comfort may be that he died in the uniform of our beloved country , serving in a crusade that will create a better world for all. Very faithful, Douglas MacArthur.
Biden made only a brief mention of his uncle in his 2008 book “Promises to Keep,” describing him as an airman who was killed in New Guinea.