Taylor WWII soldier returns home 80 years after dying in action

TAYLOR, Texas - A gun salute was the final send-off for Leroy Cloud as he ended his long journey home.

"I think closure for a lot of unanswered unknowns, whether somebody goes missing, you always wonder where they are," said JB Cloud, Leroy’s great nephew.

Leroy Cloud was an Army sergeant from Thrall.

In 1944, while fighting in France during WWII, the 24-year-old's tank was hit by a German shoulder-fired rocket.

The military wrote to his family with plans to bury him in an American cemetery, but it couldn't share the location quite yet.

Six years later, the military deemed his remains unrecoverable. 

All that changed just a few years ago.

Leroy Cloud

"My eyes were wide because I'm seeing copies, colored scans of telegrams of the notice of death, letters from my great-grandparents asking 'where is our son?'" said Cloud.

A historian with the military exhumed Cloud's body for DNA testing. He found a positive match with his great nephew, JB Cloud.

All this time, Leroy had been an unknown soldier at the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

"We cared about Leroy and that we show our appreciation to him," said Richard Steffek, who came with the American Legion Post out of Granger. 

Dozens traveled to Taylor on Saturday to salute his sacrifice.

No one present knew Leroy when he was alive, and a majority had no connection to his family.

"It meant the world," said Cloud. "There's love for somebody they didn't know. They've never met."

As Cloud is at last laid to rest, an answered prayer is met with praise.

"Somebody will always be found," said Cloud. "You may not find them in the circumstances you want. There's hope."

The family plans on donating Cloud's uniform, medals, and diploma, along with a US flag, to either the Taylor Museum or Thrall High School, where he graduated from.