BROOKLINE, MASS. (WHDH) - Services were held in Brookline Saturday to honor a World War II veteran whose remains were recently identified and returned home.
U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Charles G. McMackin, of Revere, was laid to rest nearly 80 years after his death.
McMackin, who died at the age of 26, was a bombardier who took part in a bombing mission in 1943 that targeted oil fields and refineries in Romania that were crucial to the Nazi war effort.
His plane was shot down during Operation Tidal Wave and his remains were never identified until recently.
Rosemary Stipa wasn’t born when her uncle Charles was killed, but she and her sister Pat felt like they knew him through family stories, his journal, and the daily letters he wrote home to Revere from the war.
“He was a spiritual person, he was fun loving, talked a lot about girls, meeting them overseas,” said Pat Marshall, McMackin’s niece. “So I felt like I knew him, and my mother always talked about him, and loved him.”
McMackin’s remains were identified by Army officials with the help of DNA breakthroughs.
He was buried with full military honors and now rests next to his parents.
“My grandmother would say she expected him to walk through the door at anytime, until the day she died,” Stipa recalled. “She always had hope and now he’s here, he’s going to be buried with her. That to us is a blessing.”
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