A Biloxi native was lost during the Korean War. Mayor Gilich hopes to bring him home.

The city of Biloxi is hoping to have the remains of an Air Force lieutenant returned to the Coast after he was lost in the Korean War.

First Lt. Robert Phillip Gaude Jr., whose mother, “Tonsie,” was a well-known Biloxian, was reported killed in action on July 10, 1953, while he was flying a combat mission over North Korea. He was 22.

Gaude was the son of the late Robert and Hortense “Tonsie” Gaude. The Gaudes’ daughter, Shirley, is also deceased.

The Gaude family gravesite in Southern Memorial Park includes this line: “In Memory of Robert P. Gaude Jr. who died in service of his country.”

Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich wrote to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to let leaders know that “while there are no surviving Gaude members in our city, the Gaude family has a burial plot reserved for First Lt. Gaude in the case that his remains should ever be identified or returned.”

North Korea leaders, after a summit with President Donald Trump, agreed to return the remains of 200 servicemen. The Defense Department has acknowledged that as many as 7,700 U.S. servicemen, including 37 Mississippians, remain missing from the Korean War, which ran from 1950 to 1953. North Korea has turned over 55 boxes of remains, containing one dog tag, and Defense Department leaders have said the identification process could take years in some cases.

The first lieutenant attended Sacred Heart Academy in Biloxi and later graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He completed Air Force pilot school in 1952 and was assigned as an F-84 Thunderbolt pilot with the 430th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. He flew 38 combat missions. His decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart, United Nations Service Medal, Korean Presidential Unit Citation, Korean Service Medal and National Defense Medal.

Gaude Lanes Bowling Center at Keesler Air Force Base is named in his honor.

His mother lived to be 104 years old, volunteered more than 10,000 hours at Biloxi Regional Medical Center, now Merit Health Biloxi, and was awarded a Distinguished Volunteer of the Year Award in 1984 and an Outstanding Citizen Award in 1999.

“I am simply asking that if First Lieutenant Gaude’s remains are among those identified, that we be notified so that the City of Biloxi may have an opportunity to arrange for the return of his remains to the family grave site here in Biloxi,” Gilich wrote in his letter.

This story was originally published August 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM.