Memorial Day Has Extra Meaning This Year For U Of I Professor
The crash site of the B-24 bomber "Heaven Can Wait" off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Provided by Scott Althaus
Memorial Day has a little extra meaning this year for Scott Althaus. That’s because he now knows what happened to one of his relatives who was lost during World War II. Tom Kelly was one of eleven men who disappeared in 1944 off the coast of Papua New Guinea in a B-24 bomber.
Second Lieutenant Tom Kelly.
Althaus is the director of the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research on the University of Illinois Urbana campus. In an interview with Illinois Public Media’s Brian Moline, he shared his journey to find answers about his first cousin once removed, second lieutenant Tom Kelly.
Althaus said that he hopes other families can find closure like his did, thanks to the efforts of Project Recover.
"Just for World War II alone, there are 73,000 MIA's (missing in action) still unaccounted for and half of those are associated with water sites," Althaus said, "and so a group like Project Recover has the potential with the technologies that it's bringing to bear to bring tremendous closure to many, many families across the country."
You can see a video of Project Recover's expedition below.