The death story of a World War II Army flyer began tragically on a mountainside of a South Pacific island in 1943. It ended peacefully Wednesday afternoon in a small hilltop cemetery near the Tennessee River.

The remains of Staff Sgt. Berthold Chastain were buried with full military honors in McInturff Cemetery near Birchwood on what would have been his 95th birthday.

Allen Swilling never knew his grandfather except from an old photograph that hung in the living room and stories his mother told him. He said during the funeral service at Ralph Buckner Funeral Home that his grandfather embodied the principles upon which America was founded.

Though his grandfather was gone, Swilling said there was always hope his grandfather was still alive and in a sense, he was. He survived through the old photograph and secondhand stories through which Staff Sgt. Chastain passed a legacy of liberty, freedom, justice for all and equality.

“I’ve tried to live my life to reflect those values,” Swilling said in front of about 100 family members and strangers who filled the chapel. He joined the Marine Corps because of his grandfather’s influence, who served during a time when the future of the United States of America was truly in peril.

Because of the grandfather who smiled at him from the picture, Swilling became active in the civil rights movement, Native American rights and for the downtrodden everywhere.

“Happy birthday, Grandfather,” Swilling said in closing. “Welcome home.”

The funeral was marked by a low-altitude flyover of a B-52 bomber as the wooden, flag-draped casket was escorted by military pallbearers to the awaiting hearse.

The funeral procession passed by hundreds of people lining APD 40. Two ladder trucks from the Cleveland Fire Department formed an arch across 25th near Keith Street and hundreds of students dressed in red, white and blue watched as the procession passed by Cleveland Middle School.

Chastain was born Feb. 2, 1916, in Whitfield County, Ga. He was a member of the Harmony Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga. He was killed along with 11 other Army flyers when their B-24 Liberator bomber, nicknamed “Shack Rat,” crashed in New Guinea during an air reconnaissance mission Oct. 27, 1943.

Chastain, who was 27 at the time of his death, was the tail gunner. His only daughter, Tulie Chastain Swilling of Birchwood, rode with her father’s body from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Ralph Buckner Funeral Home in Cleveland. That was the first time she had seen him since she was 7 years old.