WWII airman’s remains positively identified 80 years after final mission

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), in partnership with Project Recover and other experts in the field, has announced that they have positively identified the remains of 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly, Jr., who had been Missing In Action since World War II. The 21-year-old from Livermore, CA, served as a bombardier in a B-24 bomber named Heaven Can Wait that was shot down over a remote bay in Papua New Guinea on March 11, 1944. In 2017 the missing bomber was located underwater at a depth of over 200 feet by the nonprofit group Project Recover, leading to a 2023 mission by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to recover crew remains from the wreck site. This was the deepest underwater MIA recovery effort ever undertaken by the U.S. government.