Latest news with #militaryhonors
Fox News
20 hours ago
- General
- Fox News
Air Force cadet candidate allegedly slain by illegal immigrant honored with full military funeral
The 18-year-old Air Force cadet candidate who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant in a jet ski accident was honored by the military branch during her Saturday funeral. Ava Moore, 18, was set to begin cadet training at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in a few weeks, but was tragically killed while kayaking on Lake Grapevine in Texas over Memorial Day weekend. Moore was laid to rest with full military honors, according to The Dallas Morning News. Full military funeral honors are bestowed upon those who die while on active duty, among others, according to the military's official website. Air Force Academy cadets are considered to be active-duty military members. Full military funeral honors consist of a minimum of a two-person military service detail who provide three core elements: playing Taps, the folding of the flag, and the flag presentation to family members of the deceased. "We lost an exemplary teammate this weekend – Cadet Candidate Ava Moore, whose passion for leadership and service left an impact on everyone she met," said Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent after Moore's death. "Ava's constant happiness and attitude helped her squadron get through the challenges of the Prep School, and her drive to excel was on display as she sought out leadership positions to improve herself and her team," he said. "Our team is focused on providing support to Ava's family, her Prep School Squadron, the Prep School Women's Basketball team, and the entire Academy family." Moore graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School on May 19, 2025. She was set to become a part of the USAFA Class of 2029. Moore was hit by a jet ski while kayaking on the lake over Memorial Day weekend. The suspected driver of the jet ski and a man who allegedly helped her flee, both illegal immigrants from Venezuela, were arrested in Dallas last Tuesday. The pair reportedly had suitcases packed when they were captured by authorities. Daikerlyn Alejandraa Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 22, was charged with second-degree manslaughter, a felony. Maikel Coello Perozo, 21, is accused of picking her up and driving away from the scene. Authorities allege Perozo hit another vehicle while speeding off. He has been charged with a collision involving damage to a vehicle and hindering apprehension, both misdemeanors. Gonzalez-Gonzalez remains in the Tarrant County Jail on a $500,000 bond as of Tuesday. Perozo remains in the jail on a $3,250 bail. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed detainers on both of them, meaning that when their criminal proceedings and punishments have concluded in the United States, they will be deported.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Seaman Ronald P. Yuhas finally coming home from Vietnam
Third Class Petty Officer Ronald P. Yuhas was aboard a Navy landing craft laden with tons of ammunition when it was struck by a North Vietnamese rocket in Da Nang harbor on Feb. 25, 1969. One of more than 25 sailors who lost their lives in the ensuing explosion, Yuhas is coming home to Shenandoah 56 years later. His stay, however, will be brief. Ronald Yuhas (SUBMITTED PHOTO) After a service at Walukiewicz-Oravitz Fell Funeral Home at 11a.m. on June 12, Yuhas' remains will depart for burial with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery on June 23. From enlistment in the U.S. Navy at age 17 to his final resting place in Arlington just short of six decades later, Yuhas' saga is one of courage, tragedy and the undying quest to bring a fallen warrior home to the country for which he gave his life. Patrick McGrath, who's married to Yuhas' older sister, Marlene, spearheaded a drive to have his brother-in-law's remains exhumed from the U.S. Naval Cemetery in Guam and reinterred in sacred ground across the Potomac River from the nation's Capitol. Marlene McGrath, a retired nurse-anesthetist in Maryland, still grieves for her brother. Ronald Yuhas in Vietnam (Family Provided Photo) 'It's a very emotional time,' she said. 'I'm sad for his loss, but happy that he will finally be buried in a manner befitting the sacrifice he made for his country.' Patriotic family Ronald Yuhas was fresh out of Shenandoah High School when he enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 22, 1966. Three months short of his 18th birthday, his enlistment required the permission of his parents, Peter and Helen Yuhas. A decorated soldier in his own right, Peter Yuhas saw action in the European, North African and Pacific theaters during World War II. Ronald Yuhas in Vietnam (Family Provided Photo) A member of the 1301st Engineering Combat Battalion, he served in Normandy, the Rhineland and Ardennes in Europe, the Middle East and Philippines. Athletically inclined, young Yuhas played in the Little League and was a guard and punter for the J. W. Cooper High School Blue Devils football team. An ardent weight lifter, his stature earned him the nickname 'Bear.' Born on Christmas Day 1948, Yuhas served as an altar boy in St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, Shenandoah. Upon hearing of his death, Mayor Albert J. Matunis declared a day of mourning in Shenandoah. 'Ronald Yuhas was an All-American, a real American, and the least we can do is offer a solemn salute, Matunis said. A boyhood friend, Edward F. Krusinsky, recalled Yuhas as a happy-go-lucky guy, the life of the party. The gravestone for Ronald Yuhas in Guam's Veteran Cemetery. (SUBMITTED PHOTO) 'He was a good guy, well-liked,' Krusinsky told a Pottsville Republican reporter. 'I don't think he had an enemy in the world.' Joyce Homa, Yuhas' younger sister, still remembers the day Naval officers broke the news of his death to her parents in Shenandoah. 'My mother thought she saw the explosion on television,' recalled Homa, 71, a Mahanoy City homemaker. 'She said, 'My God, that's Ronny's boat'.' Seaman Yuhas was 20 years old, and in the final stages of his tour of duty when he died. He was scheduled to be married after he returned to Shenandoah, Homa said. Though she was in 10th grade at the time, the incident remains fixed in Homa's mind. 'When she saw the Naval officers coming,' she recalled, 'my mother passed out.' Date with destiny A Boatswain's Mate 3, seaman Yuhas was aboard the USS Mount McKinley when it anchored off Da Nang in February 1969. Named for the highest mountain peak in the U.S., it was the Mount McKinley class flagship, equipped for amphibious landings. The ship's storied history included the assault on Okinawa in World War II and ferrying Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the landing on Inchon during the Korean War in 1950. Yuhas was aboard a Landing Craft Utility, or LCU, delivering munitions from the Mount McKinley when North Vietnamese rockets rained in on naval facilities in Da Nang. The LCU received a direct hit, detonating the munitions aboard. The devastating attack killed more than 25 sailors, and wounded another 30 or so. At least two landing craft were destroyed. Yuhas was not immediately recovered. Missing for two days, he was found in the harbor and declared deceased on Oct. 27, 1969. Greeted with honor With his family's permission, seaman Yuhas was interred in the U.S. Naval Cemetery in Guam. His parents were told their son's remains could not be positively identified, McGrath said, and so they consented to the overseas burial. McGrath, who was a civilian contractor under government supervision in Vietnam, was uncomfortable with the burial arrangement. But Peter Yuhas, the sailor's father, was not a man to be questioned. After Peter Yuhas died at age 94 in 2018, McGrath began thinking about bringing Ronald Yuhas home. In 2022, embarked on a nearly three-year quest to bring Yuhas back to the U.S. The federal government's position was that Yuhas had received a proper burial, and was not entitled to be disinterred and shipped home at government expense. Undeterred, the McGraths paid for the disinterment, a casket and a United Airlines flight from Guam to the U.S. In addition, they made the funeral arrangements in Shenandoah and Arlington. Around 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 29, Yuhas' remains arrived at Philadelphia International Airport. Pat McGrath and his son, Daniel, were on the tarmac to greet the flight. The pilot made an announcement to the passengers that disembarking would be delayed until a Vietnam veteran's remains would be unloaded, McGrath said. Passengers onboard peered from the plane's windows as a United Airlines truck with an American flag on top pulled up to the cargo bay and unloaded a shipping container with the casket inside. At long last, Third Class Petty Officer Ronald P. Yuhas was on U.S. soil once again.
CTV News
26-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
WWII bomber crash left 11 dead and ‘non-recoverable.' 4 are finally coming home
An American flag is folded during the interment for World War II U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan at a cemetery, Saturday, May 24, 2025, in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. — As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable. Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet (61 metres) in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator was buried with military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. 'I'm just so grateful,' he told The Associated Press. 'It's been an impossible journey — just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' March 11, 1944: Bomber down The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. Memorial Day 2013: The Search As Memorial Day approached twelve years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles (27 square kilometres) of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. Memorial Day 2025: Belated Homecomings More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said. Michael Hill, The Associated Press
CNN
26-05-2025
- General
- CNN
WWII bomber crash left 11 dead and ‘non-recoverable.' Four are finally coming home
FacebookTweetLink Follow As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water. All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable. Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet (61 meters) in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator was buried military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. 'I'm just so grateful,' he told The Associated Press. 'It's been an impossible journey — just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. As Memorial Day approached twelve years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles (27 square kilometers) of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said.
The Independent
26-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Eleven men died in a mystery WWII bomber crash. Their families have finally found the bodies
Decades after the World War II bomber "Heaven Can Wait" met its watery grave off the coast of New Guinea, the remains of some of its crew are finally returning home. The plane, downed by enemy fire on March 11, 1944, carried 11 men, all of whom perished. A poignant final salute from the co-pilot to a nearby aircraft marked the bomber's last moments before crashing into the Pacific. Initially, the remains, lost in the depths, were deemed non-recoverable. However, the story didn't end there. A relentless investigation by family members, coupled with a dedicated recovery mission, has rewritten the ending for four of the crew. Elite Navy divers, utilizing a pressurized bell, descended 200 feet to the seabed where the wreckage lay, retrieving the remains and beginning the process of bringing them home. Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the radio operator was buried military honors and community support on Saturday in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, New York, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son. The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas Kelly, was to be buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months. The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down. 'I'm just so grateful,' he said. 'It's been an impossible journey — just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later.' The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose and a crew of 11 on its final flight. They were on a mission to bomb Japanese targets when the plane was shot down. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors. Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed. Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan, 26, also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy. Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death. Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. 'She never stopped believing that he was going to come home,' said her grandson, Scott Jefferson. As Memorial Day approached twelve years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II. Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 years old when he was reported missing in action. Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane. 'It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family,' he said. With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off of Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA. A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles (27 square kilometers) of seafloor. The DPAA launched its deepest ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's partially corroded tag with his the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but the word BOMBARDIER was still legible. And they recovered remains that underwent DNA testing. Last September, the military officially accounted for Darrigan, Kelly, Sheppick and Tennyson. With seven men who were on the plane still unaccounted for, a future DPAA mission to the site is possible. More than 200 people honored Darrigan on Saturday in Wappingers Falls, some waving flags from the sidewalk during the procession to the church, others saluting him at a graveside ceremony under cloudy skies. 'After 80 years, this great soldier has come home to rest,' Darrigan's great niece, Susan Pineiro, told mourners at his graveside. Darrigan's son died in 2020, but his grandson Eric Schindler attended. Darrigan's 85-year-old niece, Virginia Pineiro, solemnly accepted the folded flag. Kelly's remains arrived in the Bay Area on Friday. He was to be buried Monday at his family's cemetery plot, right by the marker with the bomber etched on it. A procession of Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcyclists will pass by Kelly's old home and high school before he is interred. 'I think it's very unlikely that Tom Kelly's memory is going to fade soon,' said Althaus, now a volunteer with Project Recover. Sheppick will be buried in the months ahead near his parents in a cemetery in Coal Center, Pennsylvania. His niece, Deborah Wineland, said she thinks her late father, Sheppick's younger brother, would have wanted it that way. The son Sheppick never met died of cancer while in high school. Tennyson will be interred on June 27 in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be buried beside his wife, Jean, who died in 2017, just months before the wreckage was located. 'I think because she never stopped believing that he was coming back to her, that it's only fitting she be proven right,' Jefferson said.
