End of a mystery: U.S. Army Air Force pilot identified nearly 80 years after WWII crash
A U.S. pilot who was long considered missing in action after a failed World War II mission has been found.
U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Herbert G. Tennyson of Wichita, Kansas, died in March 1944 with 10 other crew members aboard the Heaven Can Wait bomber in present-day Papua New Guinea. It wasn't until 2024 that the Defense Department identified his and three others' remains from the wreckage, the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency said Monday.
The agency wrote that anti-aircraft fire from enemy forces hit the plane, causing bombs aboard to explode.
"Several aircraft circled the crash site in hopes of locating any possible survivors, but none could be seen," the agency said.
Tennyson, 24, is the fourth person from the mission whose remains were found, said Sean Everett, media relations chief for the war accounting agency, which has not yet publicly named all four. The agency repatriated the remains of Bombardier 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly, 21, and Radio Operator Staff Sgt. Eugene J. Darrigan, 26, in September.
Scott Althaus, Kelly's first cousin once-removed, said the discovery was moving and brought his family closure.
"We all just were sharing the same reaction: just profound grieving and tears and strong emotional response that none of us expected because none of us, but my mom, had met him," Althaus, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, told Paste BN.
Tennyson's relatives couldn't immediately be reached.
The Defense Department has identified the remains of 1,155 World War II soldiers since the accounting agency's creation in 2015, Everett said.
'Heaven Can Wait' bomber shot down, crew killed
Tennyson piloted the Heaven Can Wait heavy bomber, named after the 1943 film, in an effort to take down Axis powers at the Boram Airfield, according to Pacific Wrecks, a nonprofit that compiles information about missing soldiers. The aircraft was used in 30 other World War II missions because of its flight range.
According to the U.S. military, an unknown enemy force shot down the plane and it erupted into a fiery ball before crashing into the Pacific Ocean. The military declared all aboard and the bomber missing in action in 1950.
Decades after the crash, Althaus and his relatives sorted through historical documents and other records to learn more about the fate of Heaven Can Wait. He knew then that a family member died in the war but didn't know the person's name or cause of death.
"His sister, who passed before this journey started, had maintained a collection of every letter he had written from the war," Althaus said. "So, we had that, and we could read what was his day to day, what was his business, and what he was excited about. So that brought us a sense of who this man was that we never could have had the chance to know."
Althaus gathered as much information as he could collect on the approximate location of the plane, eyewitness accounts of the crash and diary entries from soldiers on aircraft flying with the bomber. He shared that information with Project Recover, according to Michelle Abbey, director of community and donor relations, for the organization. The nonprofit works with the Defense Department's war accounting agency to help locate missing service members.
Project Recover found the bomber's wreckage in 2017 more than 200 deep in the Hansa Bay using sonar, imaging devices and unmanned aerial and underwater robots, according to the nonprofit. The discovery confirmed where Althaus and his family presumed the plane crashed.
Two years later, the war accounting agency sent the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit to confirm Heaven Can Wait's location. The unit carried out another dive in 2023 after delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and pulled the plane out of the Pacific Ocean. Divers recovered evidence such as life support equipment and identification tags, which were sent to the agency's laboratory for review.
"To identify Tennyson’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence," the defense POW accounting agency wrote. "Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis."
The remains of Staff Sgt. Donald W. Burd, Staff Sgt. John W. Emmer Jr., Technical Sergeant Edward Gorvetzian, Staff Sgt. Walter W. Graves, Staff Sgt. Paul W. Martin, 2nd Lt. Michael J. McFadden Jr., Staff Sgt. Eugene A. Reinhardt and 2nd Lt. Donald W. Sheppick haven't been publicly identified.
All 11 aboard the aircraft were posthumously awarded the Air Medal and a Purple Heart, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission.
Project Recover said more than 81,000 Americans are still missing in action from World War II to current-day conflicts. Those missing are believed to be related to more than 5 million family members.
"This is a scale of connection that is actually quite large," Althaus said. "Yet it's so unusual for one of these missing to be found and to be brought home."
(This story has been updated to add new information.)
Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at knurse@USATODAY.com. Follow her on X @KrystalRNurse, and on BlueSky @krystalrnuse.bsky.social.