HOUSTON — The body of a U.S. Army airman who was missing in action for 80 years has finally made it back home to Texas.
The remains of Sgt. Elton Gomillion landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport late Thursday afternoon.
Gomillion’s remaining family members, who were either too young to have known him, or hadn’t been born, were on the tarmac for the arrival.
Ellen Dyer is the airman’s niece. She was only two years old when he went missing in 1943.
Dyer said her mother held onto hope for years that her brother was still alive. She said her mother would make the trip to downtown Navasota, every single day, to where the names of the deceased and wounded soldiers were posted daily.
Her mother did this without fail for years, Dyer said, until the end of the war when it was clear that her brother was never coming home.
Sgt. Gomillion and his 10 crew members were killed when they were shot down during Operation Tidal Wave, a bombing campaign over Romania in 1943.
The bodies of the dead soldiers were buried together in a mass grave.
Since 2017, the Department of Defense has been exhuming the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas through its Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
Scientists have been able to match the remains with the identities of missing soldiers using DNA samples from their living relatives.
Sgt. Gomillion’s remains will be buried in Iola, Texas on September 12.