File image.
CHESTER, W.Va. — A soldier killed in World War II in Europe has finally been returned to his native Hancock County, West Virginia.
Services were held in the community of Chester in the Northern Panhandle for First Lt. Richard Horrigan. Community members came out to greet the hearse which finally brought him home from the European Theater of Operations.
Horrigan was a pilot and was shot down over the Lonnewitz Airfield in German in April 1945. He was at the controls of a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane at the time of his demise.
The area was controlled after the war by the Soviet Union. His remains were finally positively identified in 2019 and the process of sending them home began.