'Closure and Relief' as Soldier Killed in 1945 Identified

The body of US Army Pvt. Jeremiah P. Mahoney has been identified almost 80 years after he was killed during fierce fighting in northeast France. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed last month that the body of the 19-year-old from Chicago was among dozens of sets of remains recovered from a forest in 1947, the New York Times reports. "For the first time in my life, I had a familiarity with this long-lost uncle," says Jerry Mannell, a nephew born years after the war ended. "There was a sense of closure and relief. But there was a larger sense of remorse for his immediate family not having this information before they passed."

Mahoney "was assigned to Anti-Tank Company, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division in the European Theater during World War II," the DPAA said. He was killed on Jan. 17, 1945, in a battle with counterattacking German forces during a resupply mission, but "due to the intensity of the fighting his unit could not recover his body as it was forced to withdraw from the area," the DPAA said. A "Finding of Death" was issued in 1946. Before his body was identified with modern forensic techniques, he was interred as Unknown X-6379 in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. The remains were exhumed for testing in 2022. "Kudos to the Army for sticking with this for 75 years," Mannell says. "So they truly leave no soldier behind."

Mahoney arrived in Europe in February 1944. He served in Italy and France and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart, the Times reports. "He and I shared the same foxhole many times, same blankets, food, clothes, etc.," a soldier in his company wrote to Mahoney's mother after his death. "Of all the men in there that I've seen in action, none was of stouter heart than your son. Everybody liked Mahoney. He was the sort of fellow who could be depended on every time. By that I mean he never hesitated to perform his duties come what might. Mahoney never, in spite of how rough things got, lost his nerve nor sense of humor." Mahoney's remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, CBS News reports. (More World War II stories.)