A portrait of U.S. Army Air Corps Tech Sgt. Kenneth McKeeman was on display as family and friends adorned his casket with roses during his burial at the Connecticut State Veterans Ceremony in Middletown, Conn., June 7, 2024. McKeeman was a radioman assigned to the B-24 Liberator aircraft which was shot down off the coast of France in 1944. He was declared unrecoverable at the end of the war, but his remains were identified in 2023 as part of the Department of Defense’s ongoing mission to account for and return the remains of missing service members. (Timothy Koster/Connecticut National Guard)
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (Tribune News Service) — With all the color, sound, and solemnity of full military honors, U.S. Army Tech Sgt. Kenneth J. McKeeman of Waterbury was finally laid to rest 80 years after he was killed in France during World War II.
McKeeman, whose remains were only recently identified, was buried Friday at State Veterans Cemetery. Family members said that Friday was his birthday.
“Welcome home,” McKeeman’s nephew and namesake, Kenneth McKeeman of Cheshire, said at the graveside service.
Sgt. McKeeman, 23, perished with the entire crew of a B-24 Liberator that the Germans shot down on France’s southern coast in March 1944. He was identified last year from remains exhumed from the Rhône American Cemetery in Draguignan, France, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
Connecticut National Guard soldiers served as pallbearers and gun salute squad, and two F-35 fighter jets from the Vermont Air National Guard flew over during the service. A National Guard sergeant presented the American flag that had been draped over the coffin to McKeeman’s niece, MaryAnn LaPorta.
A member of the Connecticut National Guard funeral honors team presents the American Flag to the family of Tech Sgt. Kenneth McKeeman during his burial at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetary in Middletown, Conn., June 7, 2024. (Timothy Koster/Connecticut National Guard)
LaPorta, 85, said after the ceremony that when she was 5, she saw her mother, one of Kenneth McKeeman’s sisters, crying while holding a newspaper. Her mother only shook her head when she asked why she was weeping, LaPorta said.
McKeeman was born in Waterbury, graduated from Wilby High School, and entered service in 1942. He was assigned to the 724th Bombardment Squadron, 451st Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean and European Theater.
On March 11, 1944, he was serving on a B-24D “Liberator” that took off from San Pancrazio Airfield in Italy carrying 11 crew members for a mission against the coastal city of Toulon. After dropping its payload, the bomber took a direct hit from German flak just behind the rear bomb bay, according to the DPAA.
“Others flying the mission reported seeing a large burst of flame shooting through the damaged Liberator’s waist windows before the aircraft fell out of control and broke in half,” the agency reported. “The two sections of the plane fell into the water. Witnesses reported seeing no parachutes before the crash and believed that there were no survivors.”
German forces in the area found the crash site near Cape Cépet and recovered remains, which were interred in the Lagoubran Cemetery in France. Beginning in 1945, the American Graves Registration Command exhumed 25 graves from the cemetery. Among the recovered remains were some of McKeeman’s fellow crewmen and four unknowns. Remains of the unknown service members ultimately were interred in Rhône American Cemetery.
Members of the Connecticut National Guard funeral honors team prepares to fold the American flag that was draped across the casket of Tech Sgt. Kenneth McKeeman at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetary in Middletown, Conn., June 7, 2024. (Timothy Koster/Connecticut National Guard)
The Connecticut National Guard funeral honors team carries the casket of Tech Sgt. Kenneth McKeeman during his burial at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetary in Middletown, Conn. June 7, 2024. (Timothy Koster/Connecticut National Guard)
DPAA historians and American Battle Monuments Commission personnel exhumed remains identified as X-85 in 2019 and transferred them to the agency’s laboratory. Scientists finally identified McKeeman last September, in part through mitochondrial DNA analysis, the agency said.
McKeeman left a wife, Dolores Gorman McKeeman; five brothers, two of whom also were serving in the war; and two sisters, according to the Waterbury newspapers. A Mass was celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Waterbury upon news of his death.
U.S. heavy bomber crews suffered many losses in the war. The National Museum of the United States Air Force lists more than 30,000 crew members killed, 30,000 captured, 10,000 wounded, and 8,000 planes lost.
Connecticut Veterans Affairs Commissioner Ron Welch said the ceremony was important for the family and a vital reminder that, “We can never forget our fallen.”
(c)2024 the New Haven Register (New Haven, Conn.)
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Members of the Connecticut National Guard’s funeral honors team prepare to receive the repatriated remains of Tech Sgt. Kenneth McKeeman at Bradley International Airport, May 31, 2024. (Timothy Koster/Connecticut National Guard)
