NEW ORLEANS — More than seven decades after being killed during World War II, Pvt. Earl Joseph Keating is finally coming home to his native New Orleans after his remains were discovered on the Pacific island where he died in 1942.

It’s a journey long in the making.

Keating’s nephew, Nadau “du Treil” Michael Keating Jr., was only 6 months old when his 28-year-old uncle was killed Dec. 5, 1942. The private died at a place that came to be known as the Huggins Roadblock on the island of New Guinea just north of Australia — part of the bloody campaign to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific theater.

But the nephew remembers his grandmother’s message to him when he was just 12 years old and she was on her deathbed.

“She said ‘I want you to remember to please find Earl with your Dad. Help your dad find Earl,’” he said.