Almost 70 years after he was shot down over Bosnia, a U.S. soldier is finally coming home to rest.

A coffin carrying the remains of World War II Staff Sergeant Meceslaus Miaskiewicz were loaded onto a U.S. military plane in Sarajevo Tuesday for burial in Salem, Massachusetts.

Nazi soldiers shot down his B-17 plane over southwestern Bosnia in 1944 as he and his crew were returning to Italy after a bombing mission in Romania.

Locals buried the soldiers, who were dug up and returned to the United States after the war. But Sergeant Miaskiewicz's remains were not found until this past July. DNA analysis confirmed his identity.