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 Southeast 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 somber ceremony Thursday. Their remains were interred in a single grave at a military cemetery in a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur.