On May 26th of this year, the United States commemorates Memorial Day, a day when Americans honor the military servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives in conflicts. On this day, President Trump visited the Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, praising the spirit of dedication of the fallen soldiers.
During this Memorial Day period, there is also a touching story from 81 years ago.
During World War II, a US bomber was shot down by Japanese forces, crashing into the sea with the bodies of 11 soldiers onboard sinking to the depths. Despite the passage of over a decade, efforts were made to salvage their remains, and finally, the bodies of four deceased US servicemen were brought back to their hometowns in the US for burial.
The Associated Press reported that on March 11, 1944, the B-24 bomber “Heaven Can Wait” was hit by enemy fire near New Guinea in the Pacific. Before the plane plummeted into the sea, the co-pilot managed to give a final salute to the pilot on a neighboring aircraft.
All 11 crew members onboard perished. Initially deemed unrecoverable, through extensive investigation by family members and the use of pressure chamber diving equipment manned by elite Navy divers entering the 200 feet deep sea, the bodies of four crew members were successfully retrieved for burial back home.
Last Saturday, Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator at the time, held a funeral in Wappingers Falls, New York, his hometown. Darrigan left behind his wife and infant son to rush to the battlefield over 80 years ago.
Bombardier Thomas Kelly was scheduled to be buried in Livermore, California, where he grew up on a ranch. Pilot Herbert Tennyson and navigator Donald Sheppick’s remains will also be buried in the coming months.
This B-24 bomber, nicknamed “Heaven Can Wait,” adorned with a cartoon angel on its nose, carried 11 crew members for its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the aircraft was shot down. Fellow crew members on the mission at the time did not spot any survivors.
Wives, parents, and siblings of the fallen soldiers belonged to a generation that kept silent in grief, but their loved ones are deeply remembered.
At 26 and 24 years old, respectively, Sheppick and Tennyson left behind pregnant wives who would write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, at 26, was married and attended his son’s christening during a leave. An old photograph shows him in uniform, smiling, holding his son.
Darrigan’s wife Florence remarried but quietly held onto photos of her deceased husband and a telegram notifying her of his death.
Tennyson’s wife Jo lived to 96, never remarrying. “She always believed he would come home,” said her grandson Scott Jefferson.
Twelve years ago, nearing Memorial Day, Althaus asked his mother about the name of their relative who perished in WWII.
Althaus, a political science and communication professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, developed a keen interest researching WWII casualties. His mother mentioned how her cousin Thomas Kelly, reported missing in action at 21, flew in missions.
Althaus recalled going to Kelly’s memorial as a child, seeing the name of the bomber pilot engraved there. He delved into information about the missing plane with the help of other relatives.
Sharing his findings with Project Recover, a non-profit dedicated to finding and repatriating missing American servicemen and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), led to the discovery of the bomber’s wreckage in 2017 after an extensive underwater search supervised by Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers.
In 2023, DPAA embarked on their deepest underwater salvage mission to locate remains. Some remains were found, and after DNA tests, Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick, and Tennyson were officially identified in September last year.
Last Saturday, over 200 people mourned Darrigan in Wappingers Falls, with some waving flags along the sidewalk as the funeral procession made its way to the church, while others paid their respects at the gravesite ceremony under a cloudy sky.
“After 80 years, this great soldier has finally come home to rest,” said Darrigan’s granddaughter Susan Pineiro at his grave.
Kelly’s remains arrived in the Bay Area last Friday for burial near a gravestone marked with the bomber symbol.
Sheppick’s remains will be buried in Coal Center, Pennsylvania, near his family’s burial plot in the coming months.
Tennyson is set to be buried on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas, next to his wife Jenny, who passed away in 2017 a few months before the aircraft wreckage was found.
“I think because she always believed he would come back to her, her prophecy was proven correct,” said grandson Jefferson.