Latest news with #B-24
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Georgia airman who went missing in action during WWII recovered
A Georgia airman who went down in the Baltic Sea during World War II has been declared recovered six years after divers found an American bomber off the coast of Denmark. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, was accounted for Nov. 21, 2024. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, died on June 20, 1944, when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark. The aircraft, with 10 crew members, had departed Bungay, England, on a bombing mission to Politz, Germany. The plane collided with another B-24 in the same formation. The aircraft exploded when it hit the water, and two crew members were blown clear. The pilot and co-pilot survived and were rescued by Danish fishermen, taken into captivity by the Germans and eventually returned to Allied control. German records indicate they recovered the body of one crew member but do not report how they disposed of the body. Evidence suggested that Hymes and the six other crew members were killed in the crash. Hymes was declared dead by the U.S. War Department on June 21, 1945. The American Graves Registration Command tried to find Hymes and the rest of the crew, even searching remains that washed up on the coast. These efforts were ultimately fruitless, and Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number pointed to the craft being the lost bomber. The Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance in August 2021. This allowed Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency partner the University of Delaware and the Royal Danish Navy to survey the underwater site. The survey found human remains and enough evidence to recommend the site for further study. Additional excavation and recovery operations in 2022-2024 found more evidence, including remains and the ID tags of two crew members. Organizations that helped in the search and record efforts include Trident Archäologie, Wessex Archaeology, volunteers from Project Recover, stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. TRENDING STORIES: Driver charged in crash that killed South Fulton police captain appears in court Driver pulls out knife on couple driving too slow in Kennesaw neighborhood, police say 'Black Mecca' no longer? Atlanta prices cause families to move out of the city [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Savannah man and World War II airman has been accounted for
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – Former U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, Georgia, was accounted for today by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Lt. Hayes was killed during World War II. According to information released by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, in June 1944, Hymes was assigned to the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force, in the European Theater. On June 20, Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, went missing in action when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark after colliding with another B-24 in the same formation. The pilot and co-pilot of Hymes' aircraft were able to bail out and survived, but all evidence points to the rest of the crew being killed in the crash. The U.S. War Department issued a Finding of Death for Hymes on June 21, 1945. In early 1948, the American Graves Registration Command, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, investigated the crash, but was unable to find any of the missing crewmen. Over the next couple of years, the AGRC also assessed unidentified remains that washed ashore in the area where Hymes' aircraft crashed, but were not able to identify any of the crew. Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, Danish divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number that partially matched the guns on Hymes' aircraft was recovered. In August 2021, after the Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance, DPAA partner University of Delaware, along with the Royal Danish Navy, returned to conduct an underwater survey. The survey found possible human remains as well as enough evidence to recommend the site for an archaeological excavation. From Sept. 21, 2022 to June 9, 2024, DPAA primary partner Trident Archäologie, along with Wessex Archaeology and volunteers from Project Recover, and with stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum, returned to the site to conduct further operations, during which they found further material evidence and possible remains. That evidence was also accessioned into the DPAA laboratory. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Illinois professor helps find 4 from WWII bomber crash that left 11 dead
As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable. Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet (61 meters) in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator, was buried with military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. 'I'm just so grateful,' he told The Associated Press. 'It's been an impossible journey — just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' March 11, 1944: Bomber down The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. Memorial Day 2013: The Search As Memorial Day approached 12 years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles (27 square kilometers) of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. Memorial Day 2025: Belated Homecomings More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
27-05-2025
- General
WWII bomber crash left 11 dead and 'non-recoverable.' 4 are finally coming home
WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. -- As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable. Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet (61 meters) in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator, was buried with military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. 'I'm just so grateful,' he told The Associated Press. 'It's been an impossible journey — just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. As Memorial Day approached 12 years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles (27 square kilometers) of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said.
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- General
- Epoch Times
WWII Bomber Crash Left 11 Dead and ‘Non-Recoverable,' 4 Are Finally Coming Home
WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y.—As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable. Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator, was buried with military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. Related Stories 5/18/2025 2/19/2025 'I'm just so grateful,' he told The Associated Press. 'It's been an impossible journey—just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' March 11, 1944: Bomber down The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. Memorial Day 2013: The Search As Memorial Day approached 12 years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos, and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. Memorial Day 2025: Belated Homecomings More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said. By Michael Hill
