History
2 US Army Air Forces soldiers, killed during WWII, are home for burial
Stars and Stripes
April 23, 2025
Sgt. R. L. Tyler and Staff Sgt. Hubert Yeary, who were killed during World War II, have returned home for burial. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
The remains of two U.S. Army Air Forces soldiers killed during World War II, Sgt. R. L. Tyler and Staff Sgt. Hubert Yeary, have returned home for burial.
Tyler will be interred Saturday at O’Donnell Cemetery, O’Donnell Texas, and Yeary will be interred May 1 in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. They will receive full military honors.
• Tyler, a native of Denton County, Texas, was a member of Headquarters Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December 1941. He was among thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members who were captured and interned at POW camps.
According to prison camp and other historical records, Tyler died July 19, 1942, at age 22 and was buried along with other prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery, in common grave number 312.
He was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on Sept. 10, 2019, after his remains were exhumed in May 2018 from the present-day Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Philippines, for laboratory analysis and identification.
• Yeary, a native of Richmond, Va., was a ball turret gunner assigned to the 732nd Bombardment Squadron, 453rd Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force in the European Theater. He was killed in action April 8, 1944, at age 20, when the B-24H “Liberator” plane was shot down by enemy fighter aircraft fire while on a bombing mission to Brunswick, Germany.
Yeary was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on June 20, 2024, after his remains were excavated from the crash site between 2021 and 2023 for laboratory analysis and identification.
More than 80,000 American troops from past conflicts remain unaccounted for, according to the DPAA.