Marla Lawrence Dickson Andrews never really got to know her father while he was alive.

She was not quite 2 ½ years old when her father, Capt. Lawrence E. Dickson, was killed in World War II after the plane he was flying on a reconnaissance mission crashed somewhere near the border of Austria and Italy. He was 24.

As she grew up, Ms. Andrews said, she sought to learn more about her father, a member of the elite Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators to serve in the United States armed forces. He was declared missing in action, as his body and the fighter plane were not initially found.

But on Friday, Ms. Andrews, got a phone call: A DNA comparison confirmed that remains found last August at a crash site near the border were those of her father’s.

“I had given up a long time ago,” Ms. Andrews, 76, said on Monday. “Now, I don’t have to worry.”

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or D.P.A.A., which is tasked with investigating and recovering fallen military personnel, announced the findings on Friday. Captain Dickson is the first of 27 members of the Tuskegee Airmen who were declared missing to be identified.