The identity of the Florida pilot who died during World War II has not yet been established.

WASHINGTON. Nearly eight decades after a 21-year-old Florida airman was killed in World War II, his remains are being returned to the Sunshine State for burial.

The Department of Defense Prisoner of War/MIA Accounts Agency (DPAA) announced on Monday that the remains of U.S. Air Force 2nd Lt. Faris E. Weekley of Bradley Junction, Florida have been accounted for.

On August 1, 1943, a B-24 Liberator on which Weekley served as navigator was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and crashed during Operation TIDAL WAVE. It was the largest bombing of oil fields and refineries in Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania.

The DPAA stated that the remains of the Florida airman were not identified after the war. The remains, which could not be identified, were buried as unknown in the section of the Heroes of the civil and military cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.

After the war, the American Grave Registry Command (AGRC), which searched for and returned fallen American soldiers, dug up all of the American remains from the Bolovanske Cemetery for identification.

The AGRC was unable to identify more than 80 unidentified individuals from the Bolovanske Cemetery, and these remains were permanently buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery and the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium.

Then in 2017, the DPAA began exhuming military personnel believed to be connected to the missing airmen from Operation TIDAL WAVE. These remains were sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska for study and identification.

Weekley’s remains were registered on July 12, 2022.

The DPAA said scientists used DNA evidence to identify Weekley’s remains.

He will be buried in Avon Park, Florida on May 20, 2023.