Verified reporting
Verified reporting: a homecoming 81 years in the making
Technical Sgt. Raymond C. Richmond of the U.S. Army Air Forces is coming home to Marshall County, West Virginia, on Veterans Day. According to the city's homecoming schedule, his remains are set to arrive today, Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at Pittsburgh International Airport, followed by an escort by Grisell Funeral Homes to Moundsville. Organizers list the arrival time in Moundsville as to be determined, estimated around 2 p.m.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says it identified Richmond's remains on July 7, 2026. According to the agency's service member profile, Richmond entered the service from West Virginia and served in the 881st Bombardment Squadron, 500th Bombardment Group. He was the flight engineer aboard a B-29 Superfortress that was shot down during a combat mission to Japan. DPAA dates the loss to April 1, 1945; the family's homecoming site and Moundsville's city manager give April 2, and the homecoming site says the bomber left Saipan on the night of April 1 and was hit after midnight. Richmond bailed out and was captured.
DPAA says he was transferred to the Tokyo Military Prison with fellow crew members on April 16, 1945. On the morning of May 26, 1945, an American bomber force dropped incendiaries on Tokyo, and the resulting fire destroyed the prison. Richmond was killed. After the war, the American Graves Registration Service recovered remains from the prison but could not identify him, and unidentified remains were buried as Unknowns at what is now the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. In 2022, DPAA exhumed 39 Unknowns associated with the Tokyo prison fire, and the agency says its scientists used modern forensic techniques to identify Richmond.
A Fort Knox release distributed by DVIDS on November 10 says Richmond will be interred November 14 at Salem Church of Christ Cemetery in Glen Easton, West Virginia. The homecoming site lists public visitation from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, November 13, at Grisell's Funeral Home in Moundsville, and an 11 a.m. funeral there on Saturday, November 14, followed by a procession to the cemetery.
Legal / factual context
Context: the man and the town
According to the homecoming site, which draws on the family's exhibit panels, Richmond was born October 19, 1919, in Cameron, later lived in Proctor with his wife, Alberta, and was 25 when he died. The site says eight members of his crew died with him in the prison fire, while one crewman, held separately, survived the war. For decades his name was listed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
The Wheeling Intelligencer reported in October that Moundsville's annual Veterans Day service, scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Marshall County Courthouse fountain, would be dedicated to Richmond. "After 81 years, he can finally be returned home," City Manager Rick Healy told the city council, according to the paper. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, highlighted the homecoming on X this morning, writing that this year's commemoration is "extra special in Moundsville, WV, because Raymond Carl Richmond is finally coming home."
Sources and reading
- Tech. Sgt. Raymond C. Richmond, service member profile (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
Identification date, unit, loss, captivity, prison fire, Manila burial as Unknown, 2022 exhumation of 39 Unknowns, Courts of the Missing. - Lost in 1945, WWII Soldier Will Be Laid to Rest in West Virginia (Fort Knox release via DVIDS, Nov. 10, 2026)
Interment Nov. 14 at Salem Church of Christ Cemetery, Glen Easton; Grisell Funeral Homes coordinating. - Raymond Carl Richmond Homecoming, November 11 to 14, 2026 (homecoming committee site)
Biography from family exhibit panels, crew, April 2 loss date, Veterans Day arrival and funeral schedule. - Remains of WWII POW To Arrive In Moundsville On Veterans Day (The Intelligencer, Oct. 8, 2026)
City Manager Rick Healy quotation; Veterans Day service at the courthouse fountain. - Rep. Riley Moore on X, Nov. 11, 2026, 7:16 a.m. ET
Congressman's post on the homecoming.
Reporting above is based on the cited records. The section labeled “Our view” is editorial opinion. This article is not legal advice. Our Gadsden Flag is an independent brand, not a government or military organization.
Conservative commentary · Our view
Our View: the debt a free country never stops paying
Veterans Day is for the living. We thank the men and women who raised their right hand, swore an oath to the Constitution, and came home to build lives in towns like Moundsville. But a story like Raymond Richmond's reminds us that the oath has a second half. The nation that asks a 25-year-old to climb into a bomber over Japan takes on an obligation that does not expire when the war ends, when the headlines fade, or when everyone who knew him is gone.
That obligation is one of the few things Washington does that nearly every American can agree on. The patient work of historians, archaeologists and forensic scientists, done long after anyone could score political points from it, is exactly the kind of duty a limited government should perform well. It is not charity. It is the republic paying a debt it freely contracted.
There is a lesson in the details, too. Richmond was not a general or a celebrity. He was a flight engineer from a small West Virginia town, one of the citizen airmen who turned the Arsenal of Democracy into air power. Free nations are defended by ordinary people who decide the country is worth the risk. Remembering them by name, rather than as a statistic, is how a free people says it meant what it promised.
So if you are near the Ohio Valley, line the route, attend the visitation, or stand for the procession. If you are not, call the veteran in your family today and ask about their service. Freedom is inherited, and it is defended. Welcome home, Sergeant Richmond.