WWII Sailor's Remains Return Home After 80 Years

0:00It's April 28th. Welcome to Tampa Bay News today, powered by AI. A World War II sailor missing for 80 years is finally coming home for burial with full military honors this weekend in Clearwater, Florida. Robert Sear Jr. was just 19 when he died on a combat mission in the South Pacific in January 1944. His plane crashed during an anti-submarine hunt, and despite searches, he stayed unaccounted for. Decades pass with no trace, but military investigators kept digging into the wreck off on Watsu. The crew's amphibious aircraft had bounced hard off the waves, shot up 40 feet, then nose, dived with an explosion from depth charges. Some sailors got rescued that day, but Sear vanished into the ocean. His Clearwater family never gave up, honoring a kid who enlisted as an apprentice seaman and climbed to aviation, radio man's second class. They got meadows like the Asiatic Pacific campaign meadow, waiting in his name, symbols

1:00of service from a brutal war. Then came the breakthrough between 2024 and 2025. Teams pulled possible bones and wreckage from the site, and lab tests hit padded. On November 5th, DNA from family samples confirmed it was Sear, ending eight decades of mystery. This Saturday, at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park, they'll lay him to rest right. Including a hero, the Navy first called non-recoverable in 19. 49. Stories like his show how far we've come and bringing back the lost.