WWII Vets’ remains return to Mississippi nearly 80 years later

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - His family members have waited 80 years, but finally, the remains of a World War II U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier are back here in his home state of Mississippi.

On April 14, a Southwest Airlines jet delivered the casket of 2nd Lieutenant Theodore Frank Scarborough to the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport. After a brief ceremony, his hearse was escorted by military veterans and law enforcement officers from across the region.

In recent decades, DNA technology has helped in efforts to identify the remains interred in thousands of U.S. military graves overseas. Those of Scarborough, who was 21 at the time of his death, finally were named last year.

On August 1, 1943, Scarborough’s crew, along with those on 177 other heavy bombers, were sent to strike Axis powers’ oil refineries in Romania.

Operation Tidal Wave became one of the deadliest air missions in U.S. history, and the B-24 on which the young officer served was among those shot down.

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