Staff Sgt. Given Clifford Grooms vanished over the Italian coast on January 30, 1944, when his B-24H Liberator was shot down near Grado. More than 82 years later, his casket touched down this week at John Glenn Columbus International Airport, where an honor guard carried it off the plane and more than 30 relatives gathered to welcome the Adams County native home at last.
Grooms was a 21-year-old radio operator aboard Liberator aircraft No. 41-29217 when German fighters downed the plane near the Isle of Morgo, a small, mostly uninhabited island off the Italian coast, according to Local 12. He and his ten-man crew had been returning to their base at Grottaglie, Italy, after a bombing mission, per an obituary published by legacy.com. One crew member, flight engineer Staff Sgt. Harvey Gann, survived the crash and escaped from a German POW camp on his fourth attempt, according to War History Online.
A Letter Home, Then Decades of Silence
Grooms was born August 31, 1922, in Adams County, Ohio, and entered the U.S. Army Air Forces in Huntington, West Virginia, on November 10, 1942, the obituary notes. One week before he was killed, he wrote a letter to his aunt Goldie, telling her that he and his crew had been hot in action and had really sweat them out, and that he hoped the war would end soon so they could all come home, according to WSYX. He was listed as missing in action after the crash and was declared non-recoverable in 1949, the station reports.
Betty Gildow was just five years old when Grooms disappeared during the war, per the same report. Jackie Taylor, a relative, said the family is overwhelmed that his return is finally happening, the station notes. The wait stretched across generations before the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency positively identified his remains on June 9, 2026, with the family receiving the call two days later, according to a separate legacy.com obituary.
An Escort of Honor Along Interstate 270
After the honor guard brought his casket off the plane in Columbus, Patriot Guard Riders escorted Grooms from the airport along Interstate 270 and U.S. 23 toward Waverly, the station's report states. He will be laid to rest in Waverly next week with full military honors, more than eight decades after he was declared missing.
Funeral services are scheduled for noon on Saturday, October 10, at New Covenant Church of Christ in Christian Union in Waverly, with visitation beginning at 10 a.m. that morning, per the obituary. Burial will follow at Mt. Latham Cemetery in Pike County. During his service, Grooms earned the Purple Heart, Air Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal and Presidential Unit Citation, Local 12 reports.
One Case Among Thousands Still Open
Grooms's identification adds to a small but steady stream of World War II accountings carried out decades after the fact. A B-24 Liberator pilot from Cobb County, Georgia, was similarly returned and buried with full military honors, according to the United States Army, while a World War II pilot missing over Italy since 1943 was eventually laid to rest in his native Harford County, Maryland, the Army separately reported. An Ohio soldier killed in the war was buried with military honors in his home state back in 2019, according to AP News.
Cases like these remain the exception rather than the rule. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's own data shows fewer than 81,000 Americans still unaccounted for from World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War and the Gulf Wars combined. For Grooms's family, the long wait is finally over, and Waverly is preparing to give him the homecoming he never got the chance to make on his own.
