The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Tuesday that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces staff sergeant buried in Romania were identified as a Staff Sergeant from Seneca, Kansas.
The DPAA said the remains of 23 year old Staff Sgt. Moses F. Tate were accounted for in July.
According to the personnel profile on the DPAA website, Tate was assigned to the 415th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 9th Air Force, in the summer of 1943. Tate was serving as a gunner on a B-24 Liberator.
The craft was shot down on Aug. 1st, 1943 during Operation Tidal Wave, a bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania.
The remains that could not be identified were buried as Unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.
In 2017, the DPAA began exhuming remains believed to be associated with unaccounted-for airmen from Operation Tidal Wave. Those remains were sent to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Scientists then worked to identify them utilizing DNA testing, anthropological and dental analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.
The DPAA said Tate’s name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Impruneta, Italy, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosetta placed next to Tate’s name will indicate he’s been accounted for, the agency said.
Burial for Tate is set for Oct. 27 in Springfield, Mo.
