WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) -- A Wichita airman who was shot down and killed during World War II has finally been positively identified. U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer (Courtesy Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) On Thursday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer, 23, of Wichita, Kansas, was accounted for on June 20. His family had to be found and briefed before the news was made public. The DPAA also provided two pictures of him but did not have the name of the woman pictured with him. Mourer was a radio operator onboard a B-24H "Liberator" named Little Joe. On April 8, 1944, the plane was on a bombing mission to Brunswick, Germany, when enemy aircraft shot it down. Airmen on other aircraft that had been flying in formation with Little Joe did not see any crewmembers exit the plane before it crashed near Salzwedel. Allied forces could not find the crash site during the war, and the remains of all ten crewmembers, including Mourer, were unaccounted for after the war. Highly decorated Wichita veteran served in the army for 26 years, became a deputy Since then, others have tried to find the site. In 2015, the Missing Allied Air Crew Research Team contacted DPAA historians with new information on a possible crash site near Wistedt, Germany. Elderly residents remembered two crash sites but said American forces only recovered one after the war. U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer (Courtesy Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) Investigators began to look for the second crash site and found it, including pieces of wreckage and bones. Researchers tested the remains but could not match them with any unknown airmen. Between 2021 and 2023, DPAA investigators returned to the site, this time conducting excavations. By the end of 2023, all evidence and potential remains had been found and sent to the DPAA laboratory. Scientists used new technologies, such as mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA, and identified Mourer. His name was and is still on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.Mourer will be buried in Adrian, Michigan, in the spring of 2025. His primary next of kin, a granddaughter, lives there. To learn more about the Defense Department's mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving the country, visit the DPAA website.