Funeral for William Thomas Cleary, a WWII bomber killed by Nazis 81 years ago, held at Calverton National Cemetery

Lake Ronkonkoma native William Thomas Cleary was flying a mission near Italy in 1944 during World War II when the Nazis shot down his B-17 bomber and it crashed into the Adriatic Sea.

The 21-year-old and nine other soldiers aboard were killed. Cleary’s body was never recovered. He never had a funeral.

Until now.

After working for years with military officials to honor his death, the head of the Lake Ronkonkoma Heritage Association succeeded in getting permission to conduct services for Cleary with full military honors.

So on Wednesday at Calverton National Cemetery, 81 years after he died, Cleary had a funeral.

Soldiers fired three volleys to honor him. Others presented the heritage association head, Ellyn Okvist, with two sets of precisely folded American flags. A plaque that will honor him in a section of the cemetery for soldiers whose remains were never found or were not available was unveiled.

Cleary, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Force whose family founded what became the noted Cleary School for the Deaf in Lake Ronkonkoma, did not have any relatives nearby, so Okvist stood in for them.

She accepted the flags. In a brief speech, she welcomed Cleary home. And she cried.

"I think the ceremony was perfect," she said afterward. "It was very overwhelming."

She added: "We just wanted him home."

Okvist said Lake Ronkonkoma had a total of 23 soldiers killed in action, from the Revolutionary War through Vietnam and Somalia. Cleary was the only one who was never properly laid to rest. His plane was shot down Dec. 10, 1944.

"It bothered me," she said. "I wanted him to be put down for good."

Another motivation was that her father knew Cleary — they were in the Boy Scouts together, she said. She has hung 443 military tribute banners along the streets of Lake Ronkonkoma honoring local veterans and wanted to do something more for Cleary.

She spent five years researching his case, communicating with military and cemetery officials in the United States and Italy, and fighting to get him an official military funeral. The day U.S. military officials in Washington, D.C., called to say they were approving one, she broke down in tears.

About 50 people attended the funeral, held under a tent in a grassy area in sweltering heat.

Anne Ellis, executive director of the cemetery, told the crowd that Cleary, who as a teenager worked at a business in Brooklyn where he also lived, "went from bookkeeper to bombardier to fallen hero at only 21 years of age."

Cleary also worked at a summer camp for deaf children his family ran in Lake Ronkonkoma, Okvist said.

John Gallo, 60, a former Marine and a member of AMVETS Post 48 in Lake Ronkonkoma, said he showed up with other veterans on their motorcycles to ride in a procession along Route 25 into the cemetery to honor Cleary.

"I think it’s pretty awesome that after 80 years he made his way back home," Gallo said.

Another retired Marine, Richard O’Brien, 80, of Bellport, said Cleary’s assignment in the war was among the hardest.

"I’ve always held the bomber crews in awe," he said in an interview. "They did something I don’t think many people could do. They turned the tide of the war."

"It was such a tough job, being a bomber crew. Go out 20 planes, come back with five. Ten men in each plane. ... How do you go back out again?"

Suffolk County Legis. Leslie Kennedy (R-Nesconset), whose father was a Marine and whose district includes Lake Ronkonkoma, said, "This kid fought like a dog."

Charlie Watts, a former commander of AMVETS Post 48, delivered the keynote address at the funeral and called it "the honor of my life."

"William never had a proper burial at home," Watts told the crowd. "Today after 81 years we commemorate his return."