(KTTS News) – Remains of a World War II  solider were identified and will be laid to rest at the Missouri Veterans Cemetery in Springfield.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of US Air Force Staff Sergeant Moses F. Tate.

Sgt. Tate was one of 80 men who would be unidentified until now.

Services for Sgt. Tate will take place on Thursday.

There will be a funeral service at 10 am at Faith Lutheran Church in Branson then a graveside service will follow at the Missouri Veterans Cemetery at noon.

About Staff Sergeant Tate:

Staff Sergeant Tate entered the U.S. Army Air Forces from Kansas and served in the 415th Bombardment Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group.

On August 1, 1943, Operation TIDAL WAVE, a bombing raid against the oil refineries around Ploiești, Romania, was launched.

One hundred and seventy-seven B-24 Liberators took off from Benghazi, Libya, for the raid.

SSG Tate was the tail gunner on one Liberator (serial number 42-40520) that was one of fifty-one planes that failed to return.

His remains were not identified following the war.

Operation TIDAL WAVE, while successfully damaging the Ploiești oil refineries, cost the lives of hundreds of USAAF airmen, many of whom were interred by Romanian citizens into the Bolovan Cemetery in Ploiești.

During postwar operations there, the American Graves Registration Command exhumed unknown remains that were eventually reinterred at Ardennes American Cemetery and Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery.

In 2017, DPAA began exhuming those unknowns for comparison with the unaccounted-for airmen lost during Operation TIDAL WAVE.

The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these unknown remains and SSG Tate.