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The body of a Livermore native and U.S. Army bombardier who died during World War II was recently accounted for after his remains, along with the others killed in the same aircraft explosion, were originally designated as non-recoverable, federal officials announced Friday.
U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was a Livermore resident who died in 1944 at the age of 21, according to a press release from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). Kelly was assigned to the 320th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force before he was deployed to what is present day Papua New Guinea.
According to the DPAA, Kelly left Papua New Guinea on March 11, 1944 in a heavy bomber aircraft — which was named “Heaven Can Wait” — along with the rest of his crew as part of a “bombing mission against enemy positions at … located along the northern coast of New Guinea.”
While in the air, fellow aircraft crews who were in the same formation as the “Heaven Can Wait” witnessed as flames erupted from Kelly’s plane, according to the DPAA press release. As the fire spread, the plane was seen “pitching up violently before banking left and crashing down into the water.”
“It is believed anti-aircraft fire hit the plane, causing un-dropped ordnance to explode,” according to the DPAA press release. “Several aircraft circled the crash site in hopes of locating any possible survivors, but none could be seen.”
When the war ended, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) — a military unit that investigates and recovers missing soldiers — conducted extensive searches of the area but were unable to locate the remains of the Livermore native or any other of the “Heaven Can Wait” crew members.
Then in October 2017, Project Recover — a DPAA partner organization — located the wreckage of an aircraft exactly the same as the “Heaven Can Wait” plane while it was scanning the area using sonar, according to the DPAA.
The agency said that in 2019, a DPAA underwater investigation team surveyed the wreckage several times before an underwater recovery team excavated the crash site in 2023. During the excavation process from March to April 2023, the recovery team recovered “possible osseous materials and various material evidence, to include life support equipment and identification tags.”
That evidence was reviewed and analyzed by DPAA scientists who — through the use of dental and anthropological analysis as well as material and circumstantial evidence — were able to identify Kelly’s remains. According to the agency, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome (Y-STR) DNA analysis to identify the Livermore native.
Kelly was officially accounted for by the DPAA on Sept. 25. He is set to be buried in his hometown of Livermore next spring, on May 26.
“Kelly’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, along with others still missing from WWII,” according to the DPAA press release. “A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.”
