Wichita WWII veteran found 150 feet deep in Pacific Ocean will now be given a proper funeral

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A Wichita World War II Army Air Force pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert G. Tennyson, is coming home. His remains were found after being trapped deep in the Pacific Ocean for nearly 80 years.

Project Recover, a non-profit, had a crew about to give up hope of finding the plane that had carried Tennyson and his crew. A video captured the first moments they laid eyes on the B-24 Liberator.

There were cheers of joy as they knew they could finally bring some of those families closure. Tennyson is now coming home for a proper funeral.

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.

Moline said meeting the families of those recovered is why they are so invested.

“The emotion and the human connection that you get when you’re talking to loved ones that you’ve found, that have been gone for 80 years, there’s nothing like it,” he said.

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.

His grandson, Scott Jefferson, is overwhelmed.

“For my family, having my grandfather come home was really an impossible dream,” he said.

Tennyson’s wife held out hope that they would find him until her passing in 2017, the same year he was found.

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It’s a love Tennyson’s grandson is planning to honor.

“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.

For the team at Project Recover, over 81,000 Americans are still missing in action. Their job doesn’t stop.

“Their families have waited, and the voids their families have been holding all these years, finally there’s some closure to that, and being witness to that is one of the biggest thrills of my life,” Moline said.

Jefferson said he had squared away a date in late June at Old Mission Cemetery to make his first ever trip to Wichita to bury his grandfather next to his grandmother, Jean Tennyson. He hopes anyone in Wichita who wants to help honor his grandfather’s service will attend.

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