Medals of valor that belonged to a World War II hero are back with his family in Levittown after nearly 80 years.

Stanley Rosenzweig, 88, says his uncle Morris Samuelson was his hero.

"He bought me my first suit, bought me my first bicycle," Rosenzweig says. "I was 10. He was 22. That was my uncle. I loved him. He was great."

His uncle was a staff sergeant and a gunner in a B-26 bomber with the 555th Bombardment Squadron.

He was part of the group that paved the way for the D-Day invasion, but his plane was shot down on June 12,1944 while on a bombing mission over Normandy.

Rosenzweig says he always wished he had the Purple Heart and Air Medal that were posthumously awarded to Samuelson.

He asked some family members to help find his uncle's medals, but they couldn't.

They were hidden by Samuelson's widow Ruth for decades.

Ruth remarried Sam Rubin in 1946 and they had a daughter named Carol Rubin. When she was 13, Carol Rubin stumbled upon the medals of valor awarded to her mother's first love.

"I was snooping around and in her lingerie drawer I found two medals," Carol Rubin says.

She says she thinks her mother wanted to hold on to a part of her late first husband.

After her mother died, Carol Rubin said she knew she needed to do with the medals.

"I said 'I'd really like to find the family and give it back to them,'" Carol Rubin says.

She contacted Purple Hearts Reunited in February and researchers with the nonprofit group went through war records to track down Samuelson's family.

"All of us at Purple Hearts Reunited are super sleuths," says Erin Faith Allen. "We are absolutely devoted to learning as much about our veterans so that we can honor them and bring them home to their families."

After a 77-year and 870-mile journey, Samuelson's war hero legacy was returned to his nephew.

Purple Hearts Reunited has returned more than 850 medals to veterans and then families since it was founded in 2012.