WILLIAMSBURG — Eighty-three years after he was killed in a wartime plane crash in the South Pacific, the remains of a World War II airman were finally returned to his native Brooklyn, giving his family the chance to gather for his funeral Mass on April 24.
Staff Sgt. Nicholas J. Governale’s remains were positively identified thanks to DNA, decades after his death.
“You think the impossible can’t happen,” his nephew Edward Veneziano said. “But with divine intervention and technology and all those things working together, anything can happen.
“And that’s the one thing we’ve learned from all of this.”
Relatives of Staff Sgt. Governale — many who are far too young to remember him, but who grew up hearing older relatives tell stories about him — were joined by members of local chapters of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the funeral Mass at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Williamsburg.
“And now, at long last, he is home,” said Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who was the celebrant for the Mass.
Staff Sgt. Governale was a 22-year-old gunner in the U.S. Army Air Forces when his B-25C-1 bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff near Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands on July 10, 1943, killing four of the five men on board. One airman managed to escape before the plane sank into the ocean.
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The U.S. Navy dispatched divers to search for the wreckage, but the plane and its airmen were not found.
Staff Sgt. Governale’s family was informed by letter that he was missing in action and presumed dead. The U.S. military officially declared him “nonrecoverable” in 1949.
However, in 2022, thanks to technology that was not available during World War II, the Defense Department POW/MIA Accounting Agency and Project Recover, an organization dedicated to finding and identifying the remains of lost military servicemembers, recovered remains at the crash site.
In 2025, Staff Sgt. Governale was positively identified after a DNA sample submitted by his sister, Marion Veneziano, years earlier was analyzed. She passed away in 2019 and never learned that he had been identified, according to her son Edward Veneziano.
Staff Sgt. Governale’s remains were returned to his relatives, who arranged for a funeral Mass and burial at Linden Hill United Methodist Cemetery in Ridgewood.
“It means so much to my family to be able to do this for him,” said his grand-niece, Christina Mace, who is a parishioner of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. “We feel he can finally rest in peace.”
As the casket was carried from the church, military veterans formed an honor guard and saluted Staff Sgt. Governale.
John Pieprzak, a Marine veteran of Operation Desert Storm and a Veterans of Foreign Wars member, said he wanted to pay tribute.
“World War II vets always hold a special place in everyone’s heart because they are the Greatest Generation. They gave the most,” he said. “So, when you find someone who has been lost for so many years, you have to make a big deal out of it.”
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Sgt. Governale’s parents and siblings are all deceased, but the younger members of his family grew up hearing stories about him, Edward Veneziano said.
“You certainly felt the love and the concern and the loss that our parents, our grandparents felt whenever they talked about him,” he explained, adding that “we all had little Uncle Nick shrines in the house…his picture was there.”
As the older relatives passed away, the younger members relied on their Catholic faith and hoped that he would one day be returned home. “His family that remained prayed and never forgot him,” Msgr. Gigantiello said.
Nicholas Governale was born on July 26, 1920, and grew up in Bushwick. He was the eldest son of five siblings. He went to East New York Vocational High School to learn to be a mechanic, but dropped out at 16 to get a job and help support the family during the Great Depression. In 1939, he joined the Army and trained as an Air Force gunner before being eventually sent to the Pacific Theater, where he met his fate.
It was important to his family that Staff Sgt. Governale received a Mass of Christian Burial, Edward Veneziano said.
“That was one of the first things that we talked about when he was identified was that he needs a Catholic burial,” he added. “It’s one of the sacrifices he was denied, and it’s important to us to get it.”