Two New Zealand soldiers who perished in World War I have been reburied in France after their remains were stored at a Pennsylvania museum for more than 100 years.

Lance Corporal Patrick Duffy and Rifleman George James Tombs were both serving on the Western Front with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force when they were killed.

The men were laid to rest in France by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) earlier this month after their remains were identified as World War I soldiers.

In September last year, Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library contacted the CWGC about 113 partial remains in their possession of soldiers they believed had been killed in action.

The remains of two Kiwi World War I soldiers have been reburied after spending a century in an American museum. Photo / NZDF

The Philadelphia medical museum had acquired the collection from the French military hospital Le Tréport at the end of World War I.

Through research the CWGC traced the remains to the Mont Huon Military Cemetery in France, where the men had been buried before they were taken to the United States for medical research in 1919.

Duffy and Tombs were both identified alongside other remains belonging to fallen Australian, British and Canadian soldiers.

Lance Corporal Patrick Duffy died in 1918 after sustaining injuries in France. Photo / NZDF

Tapanui-born Duffy arrived in Europe in 1915, leaving his parents, Michael and Lilly Duffy, and 10 siblings behind in Otago.

After being shot in the head and left hand in France just over a week earlier, Duffy died on 24 October 1918, aged 37. The war would end less than three weeks later.

Tombs suffered a gunshot wound and fractured his arm at the Battle of Passchendaele in October 1917, less than six months after he had first landed.

The rifleman died of his injuries on December 6 that year, aged just 24.

George James Tombs was just 24 when he died in Belgium. Photo / NZDF

He was one of the more than 843 Kiwis killed in the battle that has become known as New Zealand’s “blackest day”.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has been in contact with the families and sent a Belgium Defense Attaché to the private internment of the pair, returning them to their existing graves in France.

The NZDF is currently working alongside the families and other CWGC member governments to decide whether to hold a public ceremony for all 113 men.