A Hendersonville airman lost over Italy during World War II is finally coming home. The remains of Staff Sgt. Charles Ray Smith are scheduled to arrive at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport shortly after 6 p.m. Friday, more than eight decades after he vanished during a bombing mission, setting up a military funeral and burial expected days later.
Smith enlisted in the U.S. Air Corps in 1942, according to WSPA 7News. On Aug. 16, 1943, he was serving as a tail gunner aboard a B-24D Liberator that took off from Benina, Libya, bound for a bombing run against enemy airfields at Foggia, Italy, as Hendersonville Lightning reports. WSPA's account lists Smith as missing in action in October 1943 while serving with the 67th Bomber Squadron, while a Henderson County document places his MIA date on August 17, 1943, in Italy — the two records conflict on the exact timeline of his disappearance.
Found by Italians, Identified Decades Later
According to the station's report, Smith's remains and those of his crewmates were later recovered by Italians and buried in a civilian cemetery in Italy, where they remained unidentified for generations. Researchers exhumed the unknown remains from that cemetery in June 2022 and transferred them to a DPAA laboratory for analysis, per the same account. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency officially identified Smith's remains on May 29, 2026, 83 years after he went missing during the bombing mission.
Smith is the second Henderson County service member listed as missing in action to be identified and returned home this year, the station notes. Marine PFC Luther Rhodes, who was killed on Guadalcanal in October 1942, had his remains interred in Edneyville on March 28, 2026, more than 80 years after his death, as Hendersonville Lightning reported at the time.
A Local VFW's Yearslong Search
The push to bring both men home traces back to the Hedrick-Rhodes VFW Post 5206, which in 2025 began a mission to locate and identify 13 Henderson County veterans still listed as missing in action from World War II, according to WSPA. The post has described its focus publicly, noting the ongoing effort to find the 13 Henderson County veterans still missing from the war, per VFW Post 5206.
The scale of that search reflects a much larger national gap. During the period from 1939 to 1945, roughly 400,000 U.S. service members died, and more than 73,000 Americans missing from the war still remain unaccounted for, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Similar identifications have surfaced elsewhere this year, including a World War II pilot who went missing over Italy in 1943 and was laid to rest in Harford County, Maryland, in September, according to the United States Army.
Funeral and Burial Plans in Hendersonville
Smith is scheduled to receive a military funeral with full honors and be interred at Shepard Memorial Park in Hendersonville, WSPA reports. Hendersonville Lightning reports the interment is planned for Sunday at Shepard Memorial Park Cemetery. For a community that has now welcomed home two of its long-missing sons within the same year, Smith's return closes a chapter that began with a bombing run over Italy and a decades-long mystery in a civilian cemetery abroad.
