In This Small Thai Village, American History Runs Deep

BAAN MAE KUA, Thailand — Ten-year-old Sao Yotkantha was helping his father in their rice field when he heard the roar of an airplane unusually close. He looked up and saw a twin-engine plane hit the ground a half mile away and burst into flames.

It was World War II, and the crash of the American aircraft was the biggest event in the history of Baan Mae Kua, a small village in northern Thailand.

“I heard a rumbling sound and saw a flying boat, as Thais called it back then,” recalled an animated Mr. Sao, now 87. “It was really close. It wasn’t like any sound I heard before, and then I saw it go down.”

The airplane, a P-38 Lightning, was on a reconnaissance mission over Thailand and Burma, now Myanmar, when it was most likely struck by lightning and fell from the sky. Heavy rains extinguished the blaze.

Mr. Sao rushed to the scene with his father, but all that was left of the…