The remains of the pilot of a downed Second World War Army bomber that was the subject of a pioneering recovery project in the Pacific Ocean have been identified, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
First Lt. Herbert G. Tennyson, 24, of Wichita, was the fourth member of the plane’s 11-man crew to be accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said.
He was identified via dental, anthropological and DNA analysis of remains recovered in 2023 from the site where his plane was lost off the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the DPAA said.
The B-24 bomber he flew – nicknamed “Heaven Can Wait” – was downed by Japanese antiaircraft fire on March 11, 1944. The wreckage burned on the surface and sank in about 200 feet of water. None of those on board survived.
In early 2023, the DPAA and the Navy conducted a five-week deepwater search of the site using a special diving bell pressure chamber and a team of elite Navy divers. Numerous artifacts including dog tags and a ring were recovered along with skeletal material.
It was the first time the Navy’s so-called SAT FADS – Saturation Fly-Away Diving System – had been used in such a role, the Navy said.
The DPAA is a Pentagon agency that seeks to account for service members missing in action from past wars.
Tennyson, a former hotel clerk, had been married for 10 months. His wife, Jean, his high school sweetheart, was seven months pregnant back in the states.
The decades of uncertainty about Tennyson’s fate were painful for the family, Tennyson’s grandson, Scott Jefferson, of Queenstown, New Zealand, said in a telephone interview Tuesday night.
“In my family, my grandfather coming home … was just the impossible dream,” Jefferson said.
He said his grandfather’s loss was rarely talked about. “My grandma never stopped believing that he was coming home,” he said. She never remarried and died in 2017 at the age of 96.
He said he felt “a huge sense of relief” when he was told about the identification, adding that plans were to have his grandfather buried back home in Wichita at a later date.
Last year, the DPAA announced that it had identified the remains of the plane’s bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr., 21, of Livermore, California; radio operator, Eugene J. Darrigan, 26, of Wappingers Falls, New York; and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald W. Sheppick, 26, of Roscoe, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh.
The wreckage of the plane was discovered in 2017 during an underwater survey by Project Recover, a nonprofit partnership that uses technology to hunt for the missing, mainly from World War II.
The project began with a detailed four-year investigation by Kelly’s relatives who said they were determined to learn what had happened to him and other members of the crew.