Mississippi soldier's remains returned 80 years after his death. Here's what happened

Family members of U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Theodore Scarborough knew of the young man's bravery in World War II, even though many of them never met him.

"My grandmother was his sister," said great-niece Jill Brown. "She would tell us the story of how he was shot down in World War II and that he was buried in Romania."

It took 80 years for Scarborough's remains to be returned to Mississippi, where he grew up in the Maxie community in south Forrest County.

A graveside service with military honors was held Saturday morning at Maxie Methodist Church Cemetery.

"It was their mother's dying wish, the night before she passed, that Teddy would come home," Brown said.

A visitation and medal presentation was held Friday night at Hulett-Winstead Funeral home in Hattiesburg, where family, friends and supporters gathered to honor the young man who lost his life in service to his country.

Scarborough's niece Billie Bedingfield, who was among those presented with Scarborough's medals, remembers her uncle as a tall, dashing young soldier.

"I've waited my whole life for this, since I was 3," Beddingfield said. "He was the most handsome. I was madly in love with him."

Scarborough was 21 when he was killed in action when the B-24 Liberator bomber he was in crashed after it was hit by anti-aircraft fire in Romania in 1943.

Scarborough was assigned to the 345th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 9th Air Force, in which he served as the bombardier on the B-24.

Those on board the aircraft were participants of Operation Tidal Wave, the war's largest bombing mission sent to destroy the oil fields and refineries near Bucharest, Romania.

Scarborough's remains went unidentified and were interred with other unknown soldiers in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan in Romania. After the war, the remains of more than 80 unknown soldiers, including Scarborough's, were reinterred in one of two American cemeteries in Belgium.

"It's not a mystery now," Scarborough's great-niece Jolie Boudreaux said. "We had always been told stories that turned out not to as true. In fact, the truth is more interesting."

Christopher James, chaplain with the Mississippi National Guard's 1st Battalion, 155th Infantry at Camp Shelby, said this is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"This is something that many people who already passed in this family thought would never come to fruition," James said. "This will bring healing for the Scarborough family."

In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming unknowns believed to be associated with unaccounted-for airmen from Operation Tidal Wave losses, sending the remains to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification, DPAA officials said in a news release.

Scarborough's remains were identified by the DPAA in September 2022.

"My mother and I gave our DNA, back around 2014," Brown said. "They called me (in 2022) to verify my contact information and I just had a feeling. At that point the hairs on my arms were just … they called me the morning of Sept. 8 to tell me they had identified him the night before."

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This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: MS soldier Theodore Scarborough buried in hometown after 80 years