The body of a World War II airman has been identified.

The remains of a World War II navigator listed as missing in action for almost 63 years have been identified two years after they were found in Croatia, the brother of the deceased pilot said.

Air Force 1st Lt. Archibald Kelly's B-24 crashed on July 22, 1944, south of Dubrovnik, Croatia, near the Adriatic Sea. The plane carrying 10 crew members was returning from a bombing raid on oil fields in Romania.

Fellow crew members who survived the crash told Sam Kelly that his brother was the first to jump from the damaged aircraft, but he was struggling to straighten out his parachute and crashed into a mountain. He was 23.

''The irony is that my brother had been on 45 missions and had five more to go and he would have been discharged,'' Sam Kelly, 83, told The Oakland Press.

Kelly said he and his wife, Katie, were notified in February by the Defense Department that dental records matched the skeletal remains found in a shallow grave near the village of Cavtat.

The remains, first discovered by children in 2005, also included a button from an American military uniform, said Capt. Robert Frazer, a casualty assistance officer.

Kelly's remains were being held in a military facility in Hawaii and until they are shipped to Michigan for a May 12 funeral.

We have so many American patriots willing to show up to provide an honor guard for our dead from the current conflict which was thrust upon us by the Islamists -- I hope that some of these are available to provide a fitting homecoming for 1st Lt. Archibald Kelly when he returns home to his permanent place of rest.

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