WWII pilot to be laid to rest

1LT Herbert G. Tennyson, a pilot from Wichita, KS will finally be repatriated and laid to rest.

In 2017, off the coast of present-day Papua New Guinea, crews were running out of time to find those killed in action in World War II.

“We were getting nervous, we didn’t know where this specific plane was,” said Mark Moline, Harrington Professor of Marine Studies, University of Delaware.

Using new technologies and historical accounts, Moline, an oceanographer working with Project Recover, said the team located the B-24D Liberator “Heaven Can Wait” two miles from where it was shot down in 1944.

After marrying the love of his life in Wichita, Tennyson was assigned to the 320th bombardment squadron, 90th bombardment group, 5th Air Force, and deployed to present-day Papua, New Guinea. He was 24 at the time of the plane crash.

Project Recover says there are still 81,000 more to be located.

Lt. Tennyson’s wife passed in 2017, but his grandson Scott  Jefferson says Tennyson will be laid to rest by her.

“The fact that I got to finally lay him to rest next to his beautiful wife, who never stopped believing he’d come home, I get emotional,” Jefferson said.

The service will be held at the Old Mission cemetery in Wichita, KS in late June.

Category: We Remember, WWII