8 British airmen buried in Malaysia after 67 years

October 18, 2012 10:12 am | Updated October 18, 2016 02:23 pm IST - Kuala Lumpur

The British Royal Air Force (RAF) officers carry a coffin with the remains of a crew member whose plane crashed in World War II, at a burial ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday.

The British Royal Air Force (RAF) officers carry a coffin with the remains of a crew member whose plane crashed in World War II, at a burial ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday.

Eight British World War II airmen have been buried with military honours in Malaysia, nearly 70 years after their plane crashed while on a mission in south-east Asia.

The eight were crew members of a Royal Air Force plane that left Cocos Island on August 23, 1945, to drop supplies for prisoners of war in what was then Malaya.

The plane wreckage was found in a deep jungle by tribesmen in 1991, but the remains of the airmen were not uncovered until 2009.

The eight men were remembered and honoured by name as families and relatives paid their last respects in a sombre ceremony on Thursday. Their remains were interred in a single grave at a military cemetery in a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur.

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