An American hero is lastly coming dwelling.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency introduced that U.S. Military 2nd Lt. Gene F. Walker has formally been discovered and accounted for 79 years after his dying in World Struggle II.
Walker, a local of Richmond, Indiana, was assigned to Firm H, third Battalion, thirty second Armored Regiment, third Armored Division and served as a commander of an M4 Sherman tank throughout World Struggle II.
In November 1944, Walker’s unit fought German forces close to Hücheln, Germany. His tank was hit by an anti-tank spherical, which precipitated a hearth and prompted surviving crew members to desert the tank and flee.
Walker was not amongst them. He was 27 years outdated.
His fellow service members tried to recuperate his physique from the burned tank, however they had been unable to retrieve him because of “heavy preventing.”
Efforts to find deceased American navy personnel upon the war’s end round Hücheln, Germany, occurred in 1948. Nonetheless, Walker’s stays had been unable to be discovered.
However due to the efforts of a historian from DPAA, Walker’s stays are unaccounted for not.
The historian decided {that a} set of unidentified stays seemingly belonged to Walker, so the stays had been exhumed from the Henri-Chapelle U.S. Navy Cemetery in Hombourg, Belgium, and despatched for testing and evaluation in August 2021.
After numerous strategies of research and evidentiary examination, together with mitochondrial DNA, the company was assured in concluding that it was certainly 2nd Lt. Walker who they’d recognized.
Though it has been 79 years, Walker can be obtained dwelling by his household — his daughter, Anne Walker Collingwood, who was simply three months outdated when he died.
He and his daughter by no means met earlier than his passing.
“It was the largest shock I’ve ever had in my life. I nonetheless can’t grasp it,” Collingwood stated in an interview with The New York Times.
Collingwood stated her household plans to have a ceremony for her father early subsequent 12 months. He can be interred at Fort Rosecrans Nationwide Cemetery in San Diego, California, a scenic vista which overlooks the Pacific Ocean.
“I used to be extraordinarily glad and wishing that my mom and my grandmother could possibly be alive, in order that they might know this,” she continued.
Based on DPAA, one other 72,134 U.S. navy service members are unaccounted for from World Struggle II.
As a last act of recognition, a rosette can be positioned subsequent to Walker’s name on the Partitions of the Lacking in Margarten, Netherlands. A poignant American memorial, it commemorates 1,722 lacking and unaccounted for American troopers from World Struggle II.
The rosette symbolizes the completion of every fallen soldier’s journey, from misplaced to discovered.
This text appeared initially on The Western Journal.