Funeral for WWII Veteran Keith Tipsword Set for November 15

(KEITH TIPSWORD)

The date has been finalized for the return of Keith Tipsword to Effingham County.

The remains of the Moccasin man killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 will be brought home on Tuesday, November 15. Members of Tipsword's family including his sister Dalyne Sapp met with US Navy representatives Tuesday afternoon at the Effingham VFW Post Home. Members of a Navy detachment stationed at Millington, Tennessee to research the discovery of remains presented the findings to the family.

Tipsword's remains had been buried with other unidentified bodies from the battleship USS West Virginia at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu.

Family members never had any expectation that Tipsword's remains would be found; he was always "my brother Keith" or "Uncle Keith, he was killed at Pearl Harbor." What wasn't known is that the advancements in forensics led the armed forces to family members to seek DNA samples in hopes of matching the remains with their loved ones. That's what happened with Tipsword and his family. In recent years, the military asked Dalyne Sapp and her sister Betty Fae Yocum to submit the samples. Those samples have been found to match Tipsword's remains.

During a better than two-hour meeting with the family members, the Navy representatives discussed the process of positively identifying Tipsword. That included dental records but also the discovery of much of Tipsword's skeleton.

As to the return to Effingham County, the Navy will fly the remains from Hickam Air Base in Hawaii to St. Louis. The return will continue to Effingham to a funeral at Johnson Funeral Home. A procession will then travel to Moccasin Cemetery. It's an appropriate conclusion to Tipsword's journey; his parents, grandparents and some of his siblings are also buried there. 

A decision on the time for the service should be made within the next two weeks.