Remains of Downed WWII Airmen Repatriated in 2025 \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Four crew members from a WWII bomber shot down near New Guinea in 1944 have been recovered and are returning home for burial after 81 years. The discovery follows a determined investigation by relatives and the deepest recovery mission in DPAA history. Ceremonies honoring the fallen are taking place across the U.S. this Memorial Day.
Quick Looks
- Plane: B-24 bomber Heaven Can Wait, shot down March 11, 1944
- Crash Site: Off Awar Point, Papua New Guinea
- Crew Killed: 11; 4 now recovered, 7 still missing
- Recovered Airmen: Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick
- Discovery Led By: Scott Althaus, great-nephew of bombardier Thomas Kelly
- Recovery Missions: Project Recover + U.S. Navy divers, 2023
- Artifacts Found: Dog tags, Kelly’s ring, bones DNA-matched
- Ceremonies: Held or scheduled in NY, CA, KS, PA
- Time Since Crash: 81 years
- Future Plans: Additional DPAA missions possible to recover remaining crew
Deep Look
In a solemn return long overdue, four members of a World War II bomber crew are finally being laid to rest in their hometowns, 81 years after their aircraft was shot down over the Pacific during a mission against Japanese forces.
The Heaven Can Wait, a B-24 bomber from the Army Air Forces, was downed on March 11, 1944, off the coast of New Guinea. Onboard were 11 young airmen, none of whom survived. The aircraft was engulfed in flames before plunging into the ocean. Its location and the fate of its crew remained a mystery for decades, with the U.S. military eventually designating the remains as “non-recoverable.”
But that changed thanks to an extraordinary effort by both family members and military professionals, culminating in the deepest underwater recovery mission ever conducted by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
The story began anew in 2013, when Scott Althaus, a professor at the University of Illinois and cousin to bombardier 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, started researching his family’s military history. A simple question to his mother about relatives lost in the war led to an emotional journey of archival research, family interviews, and historical detective work.
Althaus’s work paid off. By piecing together conflicting eyewitness accounts, wartime maps, and flight logs, he narrowed down the likely crash site to Awar Point in modern-day Papua New Guinea. His findings were shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit organization that collaborates with the U.S. government to locate and recover the remains of missing service members.
In 2017, researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography confirmed the crash site after scanning nearly 10 square miles of seafloor. The DPAA followed up with an unprecedented mission in 2023, deploying Navy divers in a pressurized bell to 200 feet below the surface.
The recovery team retrieved dog tags, including one for Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, which still bore his wife Florence’s name. Kelly’s ring—worn down by saltwater—was also recovered, along with human remains that would later be matched by DNA testing to four of the crew.
On Saturday, Darrigan was buried with full military honors in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, with more than 200 mourners present. His 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, accepted the folded American flag at his graveside.
Kelly’s remains were returned to Livermore, California, where he will be buried next to the memorial stone his family placed decades ago. A motorcade of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists was scheduled to ride past his childhood home and school.
1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson will be interred in Wichita, Kansas, on June 27, next to his wife, Jean, who passed away in 2017. According to their grandson, Scott Jefferson, she never remarried and “never stopped believing he was coming home.”
2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick will be laid to rest in Coal Center, Pennsylvania, near his parents. His niece, Deborah Wineland, shared that his younger brother—her father—never stopped honoring his memory.
The recoveries come as Memorial Day 2025 approaches, offering a poignant reminder that the sacrifices of past generations continue to echo across time. Though seven of the crew members from Heaven Can Wait remain unaccounted for, DPAA officials have not ruled out a future recovery mission.
The families of the lost have found closure not only in the return of their loved ones but also in the shared experience of remembering them. For the descendants of the crew, like Althaus, the effort has forged new bonds and renewed commitment to helping other families find their missing heroes.
“It was a mystery that should never have been solved,” Althaus said. “But we solved it. And now these men are home.”
Remains of Downed Remains of Downed Remains of Downed
You must Register or Login to post a comment.