COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — A Virginia National Guard sergeant accused of stealing World War II-era dog tags from the National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland has pleaded guilty to a theft charge.

Robert Rumsby of Fredericksburg, Virginia, entered a guilty plea to one misdemeanor count of theft, according to Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Robert Hur’s office. Rumsby is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 22 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas DiGirolamo at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Rumsby told investigators he took dog tags that belonged to four U.S. airmen killed in plane crashes in 1944, according to a criminal complaint.

Rumsby’s wife is the great niece of one of the deceased airmen. Rumsby said he gave that airman’s dog tags to his wife’s grandmother as a Christmas gift and gave another airman’s dog tags to a relative of that serviceman, the complaint says.

The College Park facility stores thousands of dog tags that were seized by the German Luftgaukommandos, which prepared reports on Allied aircraft crashes during World War II.

Rumsby is assigned to the Virginia National Guard’s 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. National Guard spokesman A. A. “Cotton” Puryear said Rumsby’s unit leaders were tracking the criminal case.