North Carolina resident’s uncle to be buried in Arlington, 82 years after being killed in WWII
By Dean Hensley
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MARSHALL, North Carolina (WLOS) — For over 80 years, the family of Sgt. Frank J. Tedone, a Connecticut airman whose plane was shot down in World War II in 1943, never knew exactly where he was.
Just over a year ago, the family received the call they had been waiting for, thanks to DNA provided by Tedone’s nephew, who is also named Frank Tedone in honor of his uncle. His remains were identified, and on April 24, the family will be paying their final respects to him at Arlington National Cemetery.
The younger Tedone, originally from Connecticut like his uncle, moved to Marshall in Western North Carolina in 2013. He said he received a letter on May 13, 2022, from Lithic Genealogy, a company that had been hired by the U.S. Army to find relatives of the crew of the aircraft named “Apocalypse.” This was the plane his uncle was a gunman on, Tedone said.
Four months later on Sept. 21, 2022, Tedone said he received a request for a DNA sample by an oral swab. But the family’s wait was far from over. It wasn’t until February 2024 that the family got the call that Tedone’s remains were positively identified.
“I was astounded and shocked and unbelievably excited,” Tedone said. “After all these years, it was incomprehensible to think they had found his remains.”
At the same time, Tedone said he and his family felt sadness, not only for the loss of his uncle, but also for the fact that other family members weren’t alive to hear the news.
“There was regret that my father and grandparents did not live to know this,” he said.
Tedone said his father, Giacomo Tedone, was his uncle’s brother.
“In June 2024, we met with the Army representative at her home in Connecticut. It was at this meeting we learned that his remains, along with other crew members, had been found in 1947,” Tedone said. “All of their remains were interred in Hawaii and classified as unidentifiable.”
Tedone said his uncle joined the military in August 1942. He said his uncle’s plane was on a bombing mission over Rangoon, Burma, on Dec. 1, 1943, when it was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. His uncle died at the age of 23.
He said the past three years of the process of identifying his uncle has been “a roller-coaster of emotions.”
“I was named for my uncle and have carried the memory of him with me all of my life,” Tedone said. “To me, burying him in Arlington is the most sacred way of honoring him.”
Following in the footsteps of his uncle, Tedone joined the military in 1966 and served until 1970 in the U.S. Air Force.
“I was stationed in the Philippines and then Phang Rang Air Base in Vietnam. I was an aircraft electrician and serviced F-100s and B-57s,” he said. “I think I chose the Air Force as a way to honor my uncle. I went in the service as a 17-year-old kid and left four years later as a man.”
His uncle will be buried at Old Post Chapel, Fort Myer, Virginia at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
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