WWII pilot missing since 1943 to be buried in Jackson

After more than 80 years without a grave of his own, Lt. (Jr. Grade) Thomas Arthur Ruth will be laid to rest in Jackson with full military honors, bringing a long-delayed end to a wartime loss that began in the Solomon Islands in 1943.

Ruth, born in South Dakota in 1917 and raised in Jackson, enlisted in 1941, just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On June 30, 1943, he was providing air support for battleships and assault forces near Rendova Island when he and another pilot failed to return to base. The other pilot survived a water landing and reported that Ruth crashed in the jungle on Munda Island. Ruth was declared missing that day and later presumed dead.

For years, his family kept faith with a homecoming that had not yet happened. A stone was placed for him at Riverside Cemetery, 300 U.S. 71 South, while his exact fate remained unknown. That uncertainty began to change in 2013, when a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command investigation team located a crash site with human remains. Positive identification came in 2025 after family reference samples were used to confirm the remains were Ruth’s.

The burial is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at 11 a.m. in Riverside Cemetery. Rear Admiral Michael VanPoots, Deputy Commander, Submarine Forces, is listed as the flag officer for the ceremony.

Ruth’s return highlights a larger national effort that still reaches into Minnesota families. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency says that since U.S. recovery efforts were renewed in the 1970s, nearly 1,000 Americans killed in World War II have been identified and returned to families for burial with full military honors. The agency also says roughly 280,000 American remains were identified in the immediate postwar recovery effort. In Minnesota, the Department of Veterans Affairs says military funeral honors are arranged through local veterans service organizations and funeral directors, reflecting how state and federal systems work together when a service member finally comes home.

For Jackson, the burial will close a chapter that opened in the Pacific more than eight decades ago. For Ruth’s family, it will turn a missing-in-action story into a homecoming marked by name, rank and final rest.