Private John P. Sersha comes home

Back in April, Hondo told us that Private John P. Sersha’s earthly remains had been identified. Sersha had been a member of F Co, 325th Glider Infantry regiment of the 82dh Airborne Division and he was killed September 27, 1944 during the battle known as Market-Garden in Holland’s Kiekberg forest. The battle was made popular in the movie “A Bridge Too Far”. From the Fayetteville Observer;

It wasn’t until [Dick Lohry, Sersha’s nephew] was in high school that he learned Sersha was part of a three-man bazooka team serving in a glider infantry regiment. Sersha served with F Company, 2nd Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment.

He was among the replacements who joined the 82nd Airborne after the Invasion of Normandy, and landed on the front lines of the battle in Holland on Sept. 23, 1944.

He was supposed to arrive days earlier, Lohry said. But bad weather delayed the flight in the wooden gliders.

When the troops did arrive, the fighting was heavy, the terrain full of steep hills and valleys.

Lohry can’t imagine what it must have been like for his uncle, seeing combat for the first time.

From the Timberjay;

Unbeknownst to the Sersha family, the remains had been found in 1948 but were deemed “non-recoverable,” which meant the army couldn’t definitively identify them, and they would not return remains to a family unless there was a positive identification, Lohry said.

“The military did do a good job of trying to identify remains after the war,” Lohry said. “They had suspicions that these remains were John’s, and that information was in the X-file. But they never informed our family.”

With the information dug up by Keay, along with DNA samples submitted by Sersha relatives, and other research compiled by family members, the family asked to have the remains of X-7429 disinterred. In addition, there were independent dental analyses that concluded dental charts for X-7429 and Sersha were consistent. Under DPAA’s new disinterment process, historians were able to review the case and recommend further scientific analysis. On Dec. 16, 2015, the grave was exhumed and the remains were transferred to DPAA for analysis at Offutt Air Base in Nebraska.

That’s John’s 97-year-old brother, Paul, in the wheelchair who was there for the return of John’s remains. There will be a Memorial Service tomorrow and the funeral is scheduled for Sunday in Virginia, Minnesota.

Thanks to an anonymous 1SG out there for the links. He wanted us to get the story before he left for an NTC rotation.