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ATTLEBORO - A memorial dedicated to five Hebronville residents who died in World War II and another 118 who served is coming home.

The Plante-Quintairos Memorial will be returned to the corner of Knight Avenue and South Main Street following a 9-0 vote by the city council this week.

Hundreds of residents of Hebronville, many of whom are relatives of those on the memorial, asked the council four years ago to move it from the shadow of Finberg School, where it was placed for safe keeping after a drunk driver crashed into it and broke it at the Knight and South Main intersection in 1994.

Residents said the Finberg site is an obscure and undignified place to memorialize the service members, many of whom still have family living in the area.

The monument will be placed on the same small parcel of city-owned land from which it was removed, said Councilor Shannon Heagney, who is chairwoman of the city property committee and took up the challenge to move the monument after it had been in limbo for four years. The original 1947 site had to be abandoned around 1967 because of a reconfiguration of the intersection.

About a dozen Hebronville residents attended the council meeting and burst into applause at the vote.

"It was a long time coming," one emotional observer said.

Heagney is the Ward 6 councilor and represents the Hebronville section of the city.

The matter was held up as property committee chairmen changed and councilors got bogged down in discussions about where to move the memorial.