Killed in action in 1944.

Returned to his family in 2009.

For two decades after her son's bomber went down in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, Vella Stinson faithfully wrote the U.S. government twice a month to ask if his body had been found — or if anyone was looking.

The mother of six strapping boys went to her grave without the answer that has finally reached her two surviving sons 65 years later: the remains of Sgt. Robert Stinson are coming home.

Military divers recovered two pieces of leg bone from the wreckage of a B-24J Liberator bomber found at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of the island nation of Palau. DNA testing showed the femur fragments belonged to the 24-year-old flight engineer who died in combat on Sept. 1, 1944.

Stinson's remains arrived under U.S. Air Force escort Wednesday and will be buried Friday at Riverside National Cemetery with full military honors. In between, the body will be kept at a mortuary less than 100 yards from the home where Stinson grew up with his brothers.

May Stinson and his fellow crew members rest in peace. A grateful nation honors your sacrifice.

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