Top Photo: US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Eugene J. Darrigan, circled in red. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

An American airman who was killed during a bombing raid in Papua New Guinea during World War II has been accounted for more than 80 years after his death.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on January 21, 2025, that 26-year-old US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Eugene J. Darrigan of Wappingers Falls, New York, was identified and accounted for on September 20, 2024. 

In March 1944, Darrigan was assigned to the 320th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, Fifth Air Force, and deployed as a radio operator to present-day Papua New Guinea.

On March 11, 1944, Darrigan was aboard a B-24D Liberator named Heaven Can Wait during a bombing mission from Nadzab Strip #1 to Boram Airfield and Awar Point, Hansa Bay.

Witnesses from other aircraft reportedly saw flames erupting from Heaven Can Wait’s bomb bay, which spread quickly to the tail. The plane was last seen pitching violently before banking left and crashing into the water. It is believed that antiaircraft fire struck the plane, causing undropped ordnance to explode.

B-24D Liberator named Heaven Can Wait. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Several other aircraft circled the crash site in hopes of locating survivors, but none were found.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) conducted searches for missing personnel in the Pacific theater, including crash sites in New Guinea, where they concluded searches in late 1948. In March 1950, AGRS officials determined that they were unable to find the remains of Darrigan and other crew members aboard Heaven Can Wait, and they were designated as nonrecoverable.

A 1944 newspaper report shared by DPAA announcing his death stated that Darrigan was survived by his wife, his seven-month-old son, his mother, and his four sisters. He was reportedly the first soldier from Wappingers Falls to be killed in the war.

Between 2013 and 2017, family members of Second Lieutenant Thomas Kelly, the bombardier of Heaven Can Wait, began collecting historical documents and eyewitness accounts of the loss of the crew. The family worked with Dr. Scott Althaus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

In October 2017, Project Recover, a DPAA partner organization, located the wreck of a B-24 in Hansa Bay while making sonar scans. In 2019, a DPAA underwater investigation team conducted several surveys of the wreckage and cleaned the site of any unexploded ordnance.

Between March 9 and April 13, 2023, an underwater recovery team excavated the crash site and recovered possible remains and other evidence, including life support equipment and ID tags. The evidence was sent to the DPAA Laboratory for review and analysis.

US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Eugene J. Darrigan. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

DPAA scientists used dental and anthropological analysis to identify Darrigan’s remains, alongside DNA analysis from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.

Darrigan’s name is recorded along the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, along with others still missing from World War Two. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for. 

Darrigan will be buried in Calverton, New York.

The National World War II Museum is honored to support the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s (DPAA) mission to offer “the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.” The Museum participates as a host institution for DPAA Research Partner Fellows who support the mission by contributing research on missing World War II personnel.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website.