WWII bomber crash killed eleven; four have finally come home
The Daily Article
The Denison Forum
4.9 • 576 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Second Lt. Thomas Kelly died in a WWII bomber crash in 1944. This week, he was buried on Memorial Day in Livermore, California. Why is his sacrifice and that of his fellow fallen heroes eighty years ago still so poignant today? President Reagan once said that soldiers who’ve died for our country gave up two lives: the one they were living and the one they could have had. Today’s article reflects on our burden and privilege of living the lives they could not and our responsibility for remembering them by redeeming their sacrifice.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good day and welcome to Denison Forum's Daily Article podcast for Tuesday, May the 27th, 2025. |
| 0:09.6 | I'm Chris Elkins, narrating today's daily article written by our co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison. |
| 0:17.6 | Second Lieutenant Thomas Kelly was buried on Memorial Day in Livermore, California. Here's why his |
| 0:24.6 | sacrifice and that of his fellow fallen heroes 80 years ago is still so poignant today. The World War II |
| 0:31.6 | bomber, Heaven Can Wait, was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific Island of New Guinea on March the 11th, 1944. |
| 0:40.0 | The co-pilot gave a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. |
| 0:46.0 | All 11 men on board were killed. |
| 0:48.3 | Their remains, deep below the sea, were designated as non-recoverable. |
| 0:53.6 | Among them, Staff Sergeant Eugene Derrigan |
| 0:56.7 | was married and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. Second Lieutenant |
| 1:02.8 | Donald Shepick and First Lieutenant Herbert Tennyson left behind pregnant wives who would |
| 1:08.2 | sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Tennyson's wife, |
| 1:12.8 | Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. She never stopped believing that he was going to come |
| 1:19.8 | home, said her grandson. Twelve years ago, one of Kelly's relatives began searching for the |
| 1:26.2 | location of their plane. Last year, the remains of Kelly, Derrigan, Shepik, and Tennyson were recovered. |
| 1:33.3 | With seven other men on the plane still unaccounted for, a future mission to the site is possible. |
| 1:39.3 | More than 200 people honored Derrigan as he was buried last Saturday. |
| 1:43.3 | Tennyson will be interred beside his wife on June the 27th. |
| 1:48.0 | Shepik will be buried in the months ahead. |
| 1:51.0 | In his 1985 Veterans Day speech, President Ronald Reagan noted, |
| 1:56.0 | quote, |
| 1:57.0 | It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense |
... |
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