He is said to have lived before as Lt James Huston Jnr, who was shot down by the Japanese in 1945.
A book about him, Soul Survivor, is a best-seller in the US and tells how he began to have dreams about the war as a two-year-old.
His parents Bruce, 59, and Andrea, 47, were initially sceptical about the idea of reincarnation but have now traced the relatives of the dead pilot who were impressed by James's apparent memories of the war.
Mrs Leininger told the Mirror: "In the throes of his nightmares you couldn't work out what he was saying. But two or three months in, I was walking down the hall and I heard him saying, 'Airplane crash, plane on fire, little man can't get out.' "It chilled me to my bone hearing this.
"I asked him what happened to his plane and he said, 'It crashed on fire.' I asked how it crashed and he said the Japanese shot his plane."
James said his boat was called the Natoma and he remembered the name Jack Larsen.
Flicking through a book the two-year-old pointed at a picture of Iwo Jima in the Pacific and said that was where his plane was shot down.
Mr Leininger found that just one pilot died during the battle of Iwo Jima, James M Huston Jnr, 21.
He was shot down on March 3, 1945, while on his 50th mission, his last before he was due to go home.
James, now 11 from Lafayette, Louisiana. told the Mirror: "I think the story is incredible. I don't remember any of it but hearing about what happened when I was two, it is incredible."
A book about him, Soul Survivor, is a best-seller in the US and tells how he began to have dreams about the war as a two-year-old.
His parents Bruce, 59, and Andrea, 47, were initially sceptical about the idea of reincarnation but have now traced the relatives of the dead pilot who were impressed by James's apparent memories of the war.
Mrs Leininger told the Mirror: "In the throes of his nightmares you couldn't work out what he was saying. But two or three months in, I was walking down the hall and I heard him saying, 'Airplane crash, plane on fire, little man can't get out.' "It chilled me to my bone hearing this.
"I asked him what happened to his plane and he said, 'It crashed on fire.' I asked how it crashed and he said the Japanese shot his plane."
James said his boat was called the Natoma and he remembered the name Jack Larsen.
Flicking through a book the two-year-old pointed at a picture of Iwo Jima in the Pacific and said that was where his plane was shot down.
Mr Leininger found that just one pilot died during the battle of Iwo Jima, James M Huston Jnr, 21.
He was shot down on March 3, 1945, while on his 50th mission, his last before he was due to go home.
James, now 11 from Lafayette, Louisiana. told the Mirror: "I think the story is incredible. I don't remember any of it but hearing about what happened when I was two, it is incredible."
