A 24-year-old U.S. Army pilot killed during World War II will come back home to Wichita.
On Tuesday, Lt. Herbert G. Tennyson, of Wichita, was accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said.
The organization, also known as DPAA, works to identify and recover armed service members who went missing during their service.
Tennyson was assigned to the U.S. Army’s Air Forces Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force, a DPAA news release shows.
He was believed to have been killed on the morning of March 11, 1944.
That morning, Tennyson was the pilot about a B-24D Liberator name Heaven Can Wait. The plane “departed Nadzab Strip #1, Papua New Guinea, as part of a bombing mission against enemy positions at Boram Airfield, and Awar Point, Hansa Bay, located along the northern coast of New Guinea,” the DPAA said.
It is thought the airplane was struck by anti-aircraft gunfire, causing the explosives it was carrying to ignite. Other airmen reported seeing the aircraft bursting into flames before crashing into the water.
“Several aircraft circled the crash site in hopes of locating any possible survivors, but none could be seen,” according to the release.
Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service conducted searches of combat areas and crash sites to recover missing U.S. military members. They ended their search in 1948. Two years later, in March 1950, the AGRS said it was unable to find Tennyson and other crew members of the plane.
Decades later, the family of another Heaven Can Wait crew member undertook a search that led to finding Tennyson’s remains.
The wreckage of the B-24 Liberator was found in October 2017 in Hansa Bay. Divers recovered human skeletal remains, life support equipment and identification tags.
These items were sent to a DPAA lab to be examined.
“To identify Tennyson’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence,” the DPAA said.
His name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
“Tennyson will be buried in Wichita, Kansas, on a date yet to be determined,” the DPAA said.
Some 215,000 Kansans served in WWII, a little over 12% of the state’s population at the time. Roughly 5,478 across several branches were killed in action, according to Eagle archives.
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