West Texas Family Finally Burying Missing WWII Hero
By: Lisa Carr
Updated: April 15, 2009
A West Texas man is finally getting to lay his father to rest nearly 65 years after the WWII soldier went missing over the South Pacific. Tommy Doyle of Snyder was just 15- months-old when the Japanese shot down his father's B-24J Bomber just off the Palau islands. Staff Sgt. Jimmie Doyle was one of eleven men on the plane. Three parachuted before the plane crashed and were captured by the Japanese, the rest went down with the bomber.
Tommy spent most of his life wondering exactly what happened to his dad. Finally in 2004, a private search group called "Bent Prop" discovered the plane wreckage deep in the South Pacific, and extensive research confirmed Doyle was on-board when it crashed. Tommy got the chance to dive and see the plane before the government excavated it. "When I was on the bottom of the ocean we had a little conversation and I think that was between us. I really feel like when I got my hands on the plane and I knew he was still inside of it ... I think we made a little connection that I'd never had before." It took the government more than four years to excavate the wreckage and positively identify the airmen on-board. Sgt. Doyle will be laid to rest with full military honors in his hometown of Lamesa on April 25th.
