Pilot's brother gets ring

Pilot's brother gets ring

WASHINGTON (AFP): Indonesia handed over a college ring yesterday to the brother of an American fighter pilot who crashed over Japanese-occupied Irian Jaya in World War II, 52 years after the airman's death.

The Virginia Polytechnic Institute ring, inscribed with the name Wynans Frankfort, belonged to a young Army lieutenant who left university in 1942 to join what was then the Army Air Corps.

It was found several years ago by an Indonesian who then showed his find to an American tourist. The tourist alerted US military authorities, who began looking for the ring with their Indonesian counterparts.

"This was no ordinary find," Indonesian ambassador Arifin Siregar said before giving the ring to Phillip Frankfort in a ceremony at the elegant Indonesian embassy building on Washington's Embassy Row.

"We know it carries with it an emotional value only his family can best appreciate," he said.

Phillip Frankfort said receiving the memento "has meant a great deal to a lot of people."

Wynans Frankfort, whose plane crashed upside-down in a jungle on Japanese-occupied Biak Island in May 1944, was buried last year in his Virginia hometown following official identification of his remains.

He was one of the roughly one million Americans killed or wounded in World War II. The Indonesian province of Irian Jaya was formerly known as West New Guinea.