During campaign events, Joe Biden spoke about the death of his uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, in a plane crash in New Guinea during World War II. According to his version, his uncle’s body was never found due to the cannibals present in the area.
“My uncle Ambrose, they [his fellow soldiers] called him Bosie, flew these single-engine planes over the war zone for reconnaissance. He was shot down in New Guinea and his body was never found because there were really a lot of cannibals in that part of New Guinea.”
However, official data from the US Department of Defense speaks of different circumstances. The plane crash-landed and three crew members, including Ambrose, were killed.
According to the US Department of Defense, on May 14, 1944, an A-20 aircraft took off from Los Negros Island for New Guinea. It was a courier flight. On board the plane were three crew members and one passenger, Ambrose Finnegan.
The military report said the plane was forced to make an emergency landing on water off the northern coast of New Guinea for unknown reasons. However, the plane’s engines soon failed and its nose hit the water. Three people were unable to escape from the sinking wreckage of the plane and died.
Biden’s remarks raised eyebrows and criticism in Papua New Guinea, which has historically seen cases of cannibalism, but not in this context. Michael Kabuni, a political science lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, explained that in the past, some communities practiced cannibalism in certain situations. For example, they might eat the body of a deceased relative to prevent decomposition.
“There was context. They wouldn’t eat white people who fell from the sky.”
