A World War II pilot who was remembered for helping fellow servicemembers survive the plane crash that killed him has been accounted for, military officials said this week.
Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Charles W. McCook, 23, of Georgetown, Texas, was a member of the 22nd Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 341st Bombardment Group (Medium), 10th Air Force during World War II, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. Before joining the military, McCook had graduated from Southwestern University and came from a family of pilots, according to local newspaper clippings gathered by the DPAA.
McCook, nicknamed “Woody,” served in China and Burma, according to newspaper clippings. He was one of 20 officers and enlisted men credited for a mission that air-dropped supplies to Allied forces battling Japanese troops in northern Burma. During his service, McCook received the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross, according to newspaper clippings.
On August 3, 1943, McCook was the armor-gunner on the B-25C “Mitchell,” conducting a low-altitude bombing raid over Meiktila, Burma, the DPAA said. The raid was meant to target the Meiktila dam and nearby Japanese barracks, according to a newspaper clipping.
1st Lt. Charles W. McCook.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
The aircraft crashed during the mission. McCook and three others aboard the plane died, but two men survived. One of the survivors, identified in newspaper clippings as Sgt. John Boyd, said the plane had been hit by an explosive gas shell while flying at a low altitude. McCook, who Boyd recalled “as the best in the business,” was able to bring the damaged plane up to an altitude that allowed Boyd and the other surviving soldier to parachute from the craft before it crashed.
Boyd said this action allowed him to survive. He and the other soldier were taken captive by Japanese forces, the DPAA said. Boyd spent two years as a prisoner in Rangoon before he was freed, according to newspaper clippings.
McCook’s remains were not recovered. He was eventually listed as missing in action. In 1947, after World War II ended, the American Grave Registration Service recovered four sets of remains from a common grave near a village in Burma, the DPAA said.
A newspaper clipping describing 1st Lt. Charles W. McCook’s heroic actions before the crash that took his life.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Locals said the four sets of remains, designated X-282A-D, were from an “American crash,” the DPAA said. But the remains were not identified at the time. They were interred as “Unknowns” at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii. McCook’s name was listed on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.
In January 2022, the DPAA disinterred all four sets of remains and taken to the agency’s laboratory. Dental, anthropological and isotope analyses were conducted. Other military agencies used mitochondrial DNA analysis and genome sequencing data to help identify the remains. The processes allowed the DPAA to identify one of the sets of remains as belonging to McCook.
Now that McCook has been accounted for, a rosette has been placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing. He will be buried in his hometown in August 2025, the DPAA said.
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
Washington — Transgender military service members must come forward and voluntarily leave active-duty service next week, by June 6, according to Defense Department guidance issued by Secretary Pete Hegseth. After that, the military is expected to begin involuntary separations for active-duty trans service members who remain.
One of the service branches, the Army, on Wednesday issued more guidanceabout how it will identify and interact with soldiers with gender dysphoria, according to documents obtained by CBS News.
Although Hegseth had made formal assurances in a February memo that transgender service members would be treated with dignity, the Army’s new internal directives to units instruct personnel to intentionally address transgender troops — even superior officers — in accordance with an individual’s medical assignment at birth rather than by their preferred pronoun.
When the military starts forcing out transgender troops through involuntary separations, soldiers will identify fellow service members suspected of having gender dysphoria following a list of criteria outlined in the guidance. The markers include past requests for grooming standard exemptions tied to medical assignment at birth or the initiation of a medical treatment plan tied to gender dysphoria. “Overt conduct,” either on social media or in person, of gender identity differing from assigned sex at birth and even a commander’s “private conversation” where a soldier disclosed gender dysphoria are considered relevant under the guidance.
The commander is expected to initiate a medical record review if aware of any of the criteria above, and service members will also be asked during routine medical check-ups about their identity as a result of the Defense Department’s new policy.
In a February memo filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said transgender troops will be “treated with dignity and respect.” But in public, the Army veteran and former Fox News host has instead railed against transgender service members, saying at a Special Operations Forces military conference in Florida in May, “No more dudes in dresses, we’re done with that s***.”
The Army guidance also instructs soldiers to use the “utmost professionalism and treating all individuals with dignity and respect,” but the policies run counter to transgender social norms, like addressing transgender troops by the pronouns they prefer.
Army Maj. Kara Corcoran, a transgender infantry officer and Afghanistan veteran with 17 years of military service, now faces separation from the armed forces. She defended the service of transgender troops when contacted Friday by CBS News.
“By implementing this guidance…you’re making it worse than the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, because you’re overtly hunting down and trying to identify transgender service members or anybody that…exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria,” Corcoran said.
She added: “Transgender service members have served openly since 2016 without adverse impacts on readiness or unit cohesion. Thousands of transgender troops are combat-tested, having deployed to war zones and executed missions with distincction.”
U.S. Army Maj. Karra Corcoran is seen patrolling Afghanistan in 2010.
Karra Corcoran
The Defense Department defines gender dysphoria as a “marked incongruence between an individual’s experienced or expressed gender and their assigned gender, lasting at least six months, as manifested by conditions causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”
The Army guidance issued to units on Wednesday begins with the suggestion that identifying with a gender different from one’s sex assigned at birth is at odds with the values of truthfulness and discipline expected of service members — even beyond the uniform they wear. The guidance echoes the statements in President Trump’s January executive order stating the values of transgender service members represent a departure from the “humility and selflessness required” of military members and are “inconsistent with” the “cohesion” the armed forces demand.
Contacted by CBS News on Thursday, an Army spokesperson at the Pentagon said that since May 8, additional guidance has been issued as the service continues to voluntarily separate service members.
When asked about soldiers being directed to misgender transgender soldiers, the Army spokesman, who did not want to be identified while speaking on behalf of the service, repeated what was in the guidance obtained by CBS News: “Pronoun usage when referring to Soldiers must reflect their biological sex. In keeping with good order and discipline, salutations (e.g., addressing a senior officer as “sir” or “ma’am”) must also reflect an individual’s biological sex.”
The Army spokesman added, “The Army recognizes the selfless service of all who have volunteered to serve our great nation. We are in the process of ensuring the Army is aligned with recent policy changes to Soldier requirements. Regardless of potential outcomes, every Soldier will be treated with dignity and respect.”
Commanders have also been instructed to revise official records to reflect service members’ sex at birth, rather than their gender identity. In the interim, transgender troops are expected to comply with policies aligned with biological sex—ranging from physical fitness standards to uniform requirements, sleeping quarters and access to restrooms and showers.
Under current policy, decisions to separate soldiers outside standard regulatory grounds rest solely with the secretary of the Army — a power typically reserved for exceptional circumstances. Enlisted transgender soldiers will be separated under the Secretarial Plenary Authority, a mechanism the Army itself acknowledges is “exercised sparingly.” Historically, this little used authority has surfaced during politically fraught chapters of military policy — from discharges over COVID-19 mandate refusals to the now-defunct “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” era.
While both enlisted and officer transgender troops will receive an honorable discharge unless their service warrants a lower characterization, they will also receive an RE-3 enlistment code, meaning they are not eligible to rejoin the Army or any other U.S. military service without a waiver.
Army military officers will be separated on the basis that “their continued service is not clearly consistent with the interests of national security.” CBS News has not yet seen directives from the other service branches and whether they mirror the Army’s policies.
Under the Army guidance obtained by CBS News, transgender officers will receive what’s known as a “Code JDK” upon separation. The JDK code is for the Military Personnel Security Program, and is typically applied to discharge paperwork where a service member is being separated from the U.S. military for a security reason.
Cody Harnish, a former Army Judge Advocate General officer and now a private defense attorney for U.S. service members, told CBS News by phone on Thursday that a JDK separation code is a red flag and signals to other government agencies that the service members were separated for “national security interests.”
“This can be a serious roadblock to keeping or transferring a security clearance to future employment requiring a clearance,” said Harnish. He said under President Trump’s executive order revoking gender identity discrimination protections, if a transgender veteran’s separation from the military bears this code and is vetted for a job requiring a security clearance, “being transgender can again be viewed as a security concern.”
Harnish said that having the JDK separation code on their record may be interpreted by future employers “as evidence of heightened risk, severely complicating or blocking clearance maintenance or transfer after military service.”
But amid the crackdown and political rhetoric surrounding the service of transgender service members, Maj. Corcoran offered a pointed reflection on patriotism, duty, and shared sacrifice.
“It’s simple, we transgender service members believe in the same American values you do—liberty and freedom,” said Corcoran. “The nation’s strength comes together for a common purpose in the face of the ever-increasing hostile global environment. It is in the blood of the warrior spirit that we all stand ready to fight, and if need be, die in the defense of the cherished institutions of America. Let us embody this by serving.”
James LaPorta is a national security coordinating producer in CBS News’ Washington bureau. He is a former U.S. Marine infantryman and veteran of the Afghanistan war.
The United States and Italy signed a pact to bolster efforts to recover the remains of American soldiers who went missing in action during World War II, officials announced Tuesday.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) — the U.S. agency tasked with identifying fallen service members — and Italy’s culture ministry signed a deal to improve operations to locate and recover the remains of fallen military members who were never accounted for in Italy. The memorandum also establishes the protection of archaeological sites involved in the search efforts, Italian officials said in a statement.
The Italian peninsula was the site of intense battles from 1943 to 1945, following the Allied invasion of Sicily and the campaign to liberate Italy from Nazi forces.
It’s difficult to pinpoint how many missing U.S. soldiers were killed in Italy during World War II, but roughly 72,000 American servicemembers remain unaccounted for from the war around the world, according to DPAA. The remains of nearly 1,000 Americans who died in World War II have been identified since recovery efforts were renewed in the 1970s.
A photo dated May 1944 showing American soldiers of the Fifth Army dashing ashore during the establishment of a beachhead south of Rome, on the west coast of Italy, during World War II.
STF/AFP via Getty Images
Forensic experts at DPAA spend years using DNA, dental records, sinus records and chest X-rays to identify the remains of service members killed in combat.
Earlier this year, a 23-year-old U.S. soldier who went missing in action during an aquatic mission in Italy during World War II was accounted for.
The new agreement to recover remains of fallen soldiers in Italy was signed Tuesday by Luigi La Rocca, the head of Italy’s Department for Heritage Protection, and Kelly McKeague, the director of DPAA.
“The right to research and remember those dead during the war is now combined with the protection of the archaeological heritage for which the ministry of culture is responsible,” Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli said Tuesday.
Giuli said the agreement was a further step in “our decade-long cooperation with the U.S. agency for prisoners of war and missing in action, as a tribute to those who sacrificed their lives to contribute to our freedom.”
Stephen Smith is a managing editor for CBSNews.com based in New York. A Washington, D.C. native, Steve was previously an editorial producer for the Washington Post, and has also worked in Los Angeles, Boston and Tokyo.
Washington — The Pentagon has ordered military leaders to remove and review library materials related to diversity, anti-racism and gender issues within the next two weeks.
The order was sent Friday to leadership and is the latest step in the Trump administration’s broad effort to purge so-called diversity, equity and inclusion content from federal agencies.
“The Department’s instructional materials should be mission-focused and not promote divisive concepts and gender ideology,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
Military leaders must identify any library materials at their educational institutions that are “potentially incompatible with this core mission” and “appropriately sequester those materials” by May 21, according to the order. The materials will then be reviewed and “an appropriate ultimate disposition” will be determined, it states.
A temporary panel, the Academic Libraries Committee, will provide guidance on process and developed a list of search terms to help identify the materials requiring review. The terms include “affirmative action,” “allyship,” “anti-racism,” “critical race theory,” “discrimination,” “diversity in the workplace,” “gender identity,” “transgender people” and “white privilege,” among others.
“Those terms and guidance are to assist solely with the preliminarily identification and sequestration of materials to be further reviewed,” the order says.
Several military institutions received similar orders in recent weeks to review their materials, including the Naval Academy, which removed hundreds of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
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Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will allow the Trump administration to implement its policy barring transgender people from serving in the military while legal proceedings move forward.
The high court agreed to pause a lower court order that had blocked the administration from implementing its ban nationwide. The Justice Department sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court left in place that district court’s injunction. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would deny the administration’s request.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt cheered the Supreme Court’s order as a “massive victory” and said in a social media post that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “are restoring a military that is focused on readiness and lethality – not DEI or woke gender ideology.”
But Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign, which are representing the service members challenging the ban, reiterated their belief that the policy violates the Constitution and will ultimately be invalidated.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender service members who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense,” the groups said in a statement. “By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice. Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve.”
The policy stems from an executive order Mr. Trump signed in January that targeted active-duty and prospective service members with gender dysphoria. The measure said the military’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity and integrity” are inconsistent with the “medical, surgical and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”
Mr. Trump’s directive said the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
SPARTA Pride, a nonprofit representing transgender service members, veterans and their supporters, has disputed that characterization, saying: “Transgender Americans have served openly and honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces for nearly a decade. Thousands of transgender troops are currently serving, and are fully qualified for the positions in which they serve.”
The president banned transgender people from serving in the military during his first term, and the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in 2019. But former President Joe Biden revoked that policy when he took office in 2021.
Following Mr. Trump’s new executive order, Hegseth directed the Pentagon to pause new accessions for people with a history of gender dysphoria and halt gender-affirming medical procedures. The Defense Department then issued a new policy in February that disqualified people with gender dysphoria from military service unless they obtained a waiver. The branches had to start identifying and separating transgender service members by March 26.
There are more than 1.2 million active-duty members of the military, according to the Defense Department. Between January 2016 and May 2021, roughly 1,892 service members received gender-affirming care from the Pentagon, according to the Congressional Research Service.
A defense official said that as of Dec. 9, there were about 4,200 troops who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The Pentagon spent roughly $52 million on medical care to treat gender dysphoria between 2015 and 2024, according to a Defense Department memo.
The Trump administration’s ban led to legal challenges filed in Washington, D.C., and Tacoma, Washington. The case before the Supreme Court stems from the lawsuit brought in Tacoma on behalf of seven transgender service members, one transgender person who wants to join the military and an advocacy group. The plaintiffs argued the policy unconstitutionally discriminated against them based on sex and transgender status.
A federal district court judge agreed in March to block implementation of the ban and required the Trump administration to reinstate the policy put in place by Biden. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit then declined to grant the Trump administration emergency relief and allow the administration to enforce the ban while litigation proceeds.
The Justice Department had argued in a Supreme Court filing that Mr. Trump’s policy draws classifications not based on transgender status and sex, but by medical condition, gender dysphoria. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote that the political branches have the authority to decide the composition of the armed forces, which the Pentagon exercised when it decided to exclude transgender people from military service.
“[I]f the separation of powers means anything, the government obviously suffers irreparable harm when an unelected judge usurps the role of the political branches in operating the nation’s armed forces,” Sauer wrote.
He argued that the district court’s injunction forces the military to maintain a policy — issued under the Biden administration — that the Pentagon found to be inconsistent with the interests of national security.
But lawyers for the transgender service members said that allowing the Trump administration to enforce the ban would upend the status quo because it would clear the way for the government to start discharging thousands of transgender service members, ending their careers and hollowing out military units.
“The record is clear and indubitable: equal service by openly transgender servicemembers has improved our military’s readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion, while discharging transgender servicemembers from our Armed Forces would harm all three, as well as the public fisc,” referring to public finances, they wrote in a filing.
The transgender members of the armed forces said that the ban is awash with animus toward transgender people and noted that while the Supreme Court allowed an earlier iteration to take effect during the first Trump administration, this policy is much broader as it would force the expulsion of every transgender service member.
“The ban was issued for the openly discriminatory purpose of expressing governmental disapproval of transgender people — even in their personal lives — and rendering them unequal to others,” they wrote.
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
