Elton Lanville Gomillion

Technical Engineer Elton Lanville Gomillion, son of Joe John & Tennie Davis Gomillion, was born October 22, 1911, in Mesa, TX. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps on February 26, 1942, at Fort Sam Houston and served with the 409th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) – 93rd Bombardment Group (Heavy) - 9th Air Force during World War II.
On August 1, 1943, Elton was killed while participating in Operation TIDAL WAVE, a bombing raid against the oil refineries around Ploiesti, Romania. American, Soviet, and British leaders supported a massive strike against the oil refineries at Ploiesti. On August 1, 1943, 177 B-24 Liberators, carrying 1,725 American airmen from five different bombardment groups departed from airfields near Benghazi, Libya.
This mission required them to attack targets from unprecedented low altitudes of 100-300 feet. American officials believed low-altitude bombing would be much more precise and would also minimize civilian casualties. It was a daring plan that also proved costly in terms of American lives.
When the Operation TIDAL WAVE aircraft arrived over Ploiesti, pilots were surprised to find German defenders expecting them. Hovering above the city were large barrage balloons, tethered with metal cables. The Germans had also placed anti-aircraft guns along railroad tracks leading to the refineries, amongst the oil tanks themselves, and in fields outside of town. Finally, the Germans opened smoke pots in the fields and set oil tanks around the refineries aflame, sending dense clouds of black smoke to blind the bombers.
Technical Engineer Gomillion was the flight engineer of one of the 51 B-24 Liberators that failed to return from Operation TIDAL WAVE. Of those, 29 crashed or were forced down away from target, while 22 fell in Ploiesti or the immediate vicinity.
The War Department concluded that 225 airmen perished during Operation TIDAL WAVE. Following the operation, the Romanian government reported they had recovered and buried 216 Americans killed in the raid, 27 of whom were identified. The rest were buried by Romanian citizens as unknowns in a cemetery in Ploiesti.
After World War II, The American Graves Registration Command conducted a large-scale exhumation, recovering dozens of remains that could not be identified but were believed to belong to casualties from August 1, 1943. Each unidentified set of remains was labeled with an “X” and a number, which became the file name for that Unknown.
The AGRC transported the remains from the Romanian Cemetery to U.S. Military Cemeteries in Belgium. Extensive forensic analyses of the remains were conducted, ultimately identifying all but about 80 remains from the Bolovan Cemetery. Those that could not be identified were reinterred in Ardennes and Henri-Chapelle which are American Cemeteries in Belgium.
Approval was granted in 2017 for a pilot project to exhume 15 Unknowns associated with the TIDAL WAVE loss. In 2018, the DPAA requested approval to disinter another 71 Operation TIDAL WAVE Unknows. The request was approved in March of 2019. Following the exhumation, the remains were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
U.S. Army Air Force Technical Engineer Elton Lanville Gomillion was killed in action on August 1, 1943, and on March 30, 2023, his remains were identified through extensive DNA testing performed at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.
Elton was survived by his half-sister Joyce Gomillion Williams; nieces, Ellen Cook Dyer of Yantis, TX, Sandra Cook Rotello of Navasota, TX, and Charlene Gomillion Sanders of Conroe, TX; and nephews Robert Glen Gomillion of Eustace, TX, and Joe Cook of Bastrop, TX.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Tennie Davis Gomillion.
Technical Engineer Gomillion will be laid to rest on Thursday, September 14th, at 10:30 AM in Lake Grove Cemetery in Iola, TX. A reception will follow at the Keith Community Center.