SALISBURY, N.C. (WBTV/Gray News) – After more than 80 years unaccounted for, U.S. Army Tech Sgt. Thomas “Odell” Moss has reached his final resting place.
On Friday, Nov. 22, Odell was included in a burial ceremony at Salisbury National Cemetery in North Carolina.
“It is something that just doesn’t happen every day, that someone is identified 80 years later in World War II,” explained Odell’s nephew Gary Moss.
Gary Moss and his siblings were alerted that their uncle Odell was finally accounted for on Aug. 6.
Odell had enlisted in the Army in 1941 after his wife died during childbirth. He never returned home, and his family received a letter saying he had been killed in combat.
Decades went by, Odell’s parents passed, and his family never thought they’d know what happened to him.
“From what we gather, he was one heck of a nice guy,” Gary Moss said of his uncle. “Loved life, loved people, loved the farm, loved his family.”
Odell died before his nephew Gary Moss was born. Gary Moss said he was entrusted with his uncle’s Purple Heart and last remaining photo, and kept it on his desk for years.
When Gary Moss and his family got the phone call about Odell — it was something they were certainly not expecting after so many years.
“The military came to [my sister’s] house and we talked with them. They told us the things that went on. And, it was just unbelievable,” Gary Moss said. “[They told us that] during the battle that my uncle was in, that there were soldiers that saw the Germans coming and retreated to safer areas, and that my uncle and several other people stayed at the front line and continued the battle.”
As a veteran himself, Gary Moss says he cannot imagine what Odell’s final moments were like in November 1944.
“He gave the ultimate sacrifice, as many, many veterans have done,” Gary Moss said.
Through a more than 100-page report, Odell’s family learned where his body has been for decades.
“A farmer in Germany found these six Americans in the battlefield, and just took them and buried them out of respect,” Gary Moss said. “And then our military goes in and does all this research, investigations, interviews and and finds this, this grave.”
Through DNA samples from living relatives, a match was made with Odell’s remains that were found.
Odell’s family said that although there were years of pain and unanswered questions for the man’s parents and siblings, they are grateful to have the chance to say a final goodbye.
“I can only kind of visualize what my father and maybe his brothers and my grandmother and grandfather would think to know that, ‘Hey, he’s finally coming home.’ I think they would be very pleased and very proud,” Gary Moss said.
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