Washington Post: Retropolis
By Michael E. Ruane: Updated May 26, 2025
2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was buried beside his parents and sister in the California town he left in1943.
For many years after 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was killed in World War II, his parents kept his empty bedroom like a shrine to their only son.
In the local cemetery, they placed a memorial stone etched with his name and an image of his Army Air Forces bomber. His body had been lost when the plane was shot down and sank to the bottom of the ocean.
Kelly was 21. His mother, Theresa, saved his letters, including one that arrived weeks after his death. When his mother, father, Thomas Sr., and sister, Betty, died, they were laid to rest by his stone.
On Memorial Day, 81 years after he was killed off the coast of New Guinea, and two years after his remains were recovered from the underwater crash site, Kelly was buried beside his family in Livermore, California.