Family hoping to finally bring lost World War II airman home

Navy divers combed a Pacific graveyard to
recover remains of the ‘Heaven Can Wait’ crew

By STACY WOLFORD
swolford@yourmvi.com
After nearly eight decades, a World War II airman from the Mon Valley, who died with his crew when his plane went down in the Pacific, may finally be laid to rest in his hometown.
2nd Lt. Donald W. Sheppick of Roscoe was only 26 when he boarded a B-24 D-1 bomber, nicknamed “Heaven Can Wait.” The crew was part of the 320th squadron of the “Jolly Rogers” 90th Bombardment Group and was on a mission to bomb Japanese anti-aircraft batteries around Hansa Bay on March 11, 1944, when their B-24 was shot down by enemy fire, causing it to crash into the ocean. The crew had arrived in Papua New Guinea just four months prior to join the Pacific Theater of combat against the Japanese during WWII.
Present-day Papua New Guinea was the site of military action in the Pacific from January 1942 to the end of the war in August 1945, with significant losses of aircraft and servicemen.
A group known as Project Recover used modern science and advanced diving technologies to locate the bomber in Hansa Bay, Papua New Guinea, in 2017.
“After all these years, it’s hard to believe that we may actually be able to have a proper burial for him,” said the airman’s nephew, Rich Sheppick of Charleroi. Rich Sheppick’s late father, Warren, was only 12-years-old when his brother’s plane crashed, and his grandparents, father and other relatives carried that heartbreak with them their entire lives.
“They never talked about him, it was just too painful,” Sheppick said. “They never had any closure.”
Slowly, though, the pieces of that tragic day are finally coming together.

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Submitted
“Heaven Can Wait” navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald W. Sheppick, 26, left, is shown with 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr., the bombardier, in an undated family photograph during their service in World War II.