DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US personnel.
From World War II
F1c George C. Ford, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 4 May 2018.
SF3c John M. Donald, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 8 May 2018.
S2c William V. Campbell, US Navy, assigned to the crew of the USS Oklahoma, was lost at Pearl Harbor, HI, on 7 December 1941. He was accounted for on 10 May 2018.
SGT Melvin C. Anderson, US Army, assigned to C Company, 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, was lost in Germany on 25 November 1944. He was accounted for on 10 May 2018.
From Korea
None
From Southeast Asia
None
Welcome back, elder brothers-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
Rest easy. You’re home now.
. . .
Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,800 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of DNA from recovered remains against DNA from some (but not all) blood relatives can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.
On their web site’s “Contact Us” page, DPAA now has FAQs. The answer to one of those FAQs describes who can and cannot submit DNA samples useful in identifying recovered remains. The chart giving the answer can be viewed here. The text associated with the chart is short and can be viewed in DPAA’s FAQs.
If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a DNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.
Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.
Welcome home, men.
Rest well.
Welcome home Brothers. Rest in peace in your home soil.
Welcome Home.
Welcome home.
For those interested, Fireman First Class (F1c) was an engine room rating, Petty Officer Third Class (PO3) equivalent. Shipfitter Third Class (SF3c)- again a PO3, and Seaman Second Class (S2c) would be today’s Seaman Apprentice.
25 November 1944 was a Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving. For the men of the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, for many days leading up to Thanksgiving and for many days following it, it was combat, combat, and more combat. The after-action reports I read were incredible for the number of fights that relatively small unit was in as the march into Germany commenced. For SGT Melvin C. Anderson, that Saturday after Thanksgiving was his last fight. He and four other men in his company were killed when their tank destroyers were hit by “dug-in anti-tank guns.” Six tanks were also taken out in that fight and many more ferocious battles lay ahead of the battalion as it surged into Germany and helped bring that nation to its knees.
More information about Melvin Carl Anderson and the battle in which he fought and died. From
https://www.geni.com/people/Melvin-Anderson/6000000000705152393
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Melvin worked in the dry cleaning business prior to joining the Army in 1942.
Melvin is currently listed as Missing in Action from WWII. He was a Sergeant in the US Army attached to the 803rd Tank Destroyer Unit. He was initially injured in the arm during D-Day Operations when his unit landed at Utah beach. He was sent to London to recuperate and rejoined his unit in October of 1944. His unit was involved in the Battle for the Hurtgen Forest when he rejoined the unit. His tank destroyed took a direct hit on 25 Nov 1945. There were 5 men in the tank destroyer. Three were killed and two escaped. Melvin is listed as Missing in Action because no remains were recovered. However, eyewitness accounts by the survivors of the hit said that Mel was hit, but was trying to escape the burning tank destroyer. In the confusion, the two survivors lost track of Mel. When the unit returned to the site 2 days after the attack, they found the burned out shell of the tank destroyer, but there were no bodies inside or out. The eyewitnesses also stated that the tank destroyer had broken thru the forest and they were located on the outside edge of the forest when they were hit.
There is a memorial to Melvin at the US Cemetery in Margraten Holland. He is listed on the Tablets of the Missing. Netherlands American Cemetery lies in the village of Margraten, 6 miles east of Maastricht. Maastricht can be reached by train from Paris (Gare du Nord) via Liège, any city in Holland, or from Germany via Aachen.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE OF THE HURTGEN FORREST
. . . Just south of Aachen lay the Hurtgen Forest. Roughly fifty square miles, it sat along the German-Belgian border, within a triangle outlined by Aachen, Monschau, and Duren. It was densely wooded, with fir trees twenty to thirty meters tall. They blocked the sun, so the forest floor was dark, damp, devoid of underbrush. The firs interlocked their lower limbs at less than two meters, so everyone had to stoop, all the time. It was like a green cave, always dripping water, low-roofed and forbidding. The terrain is rugged, a series of ridges and deep gorges formed by the numerous streams and rivers.
The Roer River ran along the eastern edge of the Hurtgen. Beyond it was the Rhine. First Army wanted to close to the Rhine, which General Hodges decided required driving the Germans out of the forest. Neither he nor his staff noted the obvious point that the Germans controlled the dams upstream on the Roer. If the Americans ever got down into the river valley, the Germans could release the dammed-up water and flood the valley. The forest could have been bypassed to the south, with the dams as the objective. The forest without the dams was worthless; the dams without the forest were priceless. But the generals got it backward, and went for the forest. Thus did the Battle of Hurtgen get started on the basis of a plan that was grossly, even criminally stupid.
It was fought under conditions as bad as American soldiers ever had to face, even including the Wilderness and the Meuse-Argonne. Sgt. George Morgan of the 4th Division described it: “The forest was a helluva eerie place to fight. You can’t get protection. You can’t see. You can’t get fields of fire. Artillery slashes the trees like a scythe. Everything is tangled. You can scarcely walk. Everybody is cold and wet, and the mixture of cold rain and sleet keeps falling. They jump off again, and soon there is only a handful of the old men left.”
On September 19th, the 3rd Armored Division and the 9th Infantry Division began the attack. The lieutenants and captains quickly learned that control of formations larger than platoons was nearly impossible. Troops more than a few feet apart couldn’t see each other. There were no clearings, only narrow firebreaks and trails. Maps were almost useless. When the Germans, secure in their bunkers, saw the GIs coming forward, they called down presighted artillery fire, using shells with fuses designed to explode on contact with the treetops. When men dove to the ground for cover, as they had been trained to do and as instinct dictated, they exposed themselves to a rain of hot metal and wood splinters. They learned that to survive a shelling in the Hurtgen, hug a tree. That way they exposed only their steel helmets.
Tanks could barely move on the few roads, as they were too muddy, too heavily mined, too narrow. The tanks could not move at all off the roads. Airplanes couldn’t fly. The artillery could shoot, but not very effectively, as FOs couldn’t see ten meters to the front. The Americans could not use their assets — air, artillery, mobility. They were committed to a fight of mud and mines, carried out by infantry skirmish lines plunging ever deeper into the forest, with machine guns and light mortars their only support.
25 NOV 1944
The 22d Infantry, heavily reinforced by armor, artillery and engineers, launched its attack to seize Grosshau on 25 November. The 3d Battalion again executed a left hook and found its initial move to the forest edge north of Grosshau easy. It then took three hours for the tanks to make their way through the woods and come on line with the infantry. By that time, the Germans were waiting. Six tanks were destroyed in a matter of minutes and the infantry was driven back into the trees by a massive artillery barrage. The 2d Battalion also made it to the edge of the woods south of Grosshau, but not before sustaining heavy casualties. Nine battalions of artillery, ranging from 105mm to 240mm howitzers, then fired against the village, but to little effect against the German soldiers safely ensconced in the cellars. More leaders in the 22d fell on this day than on any other day of battle. The following day was quiet except for one company committed to close the gap between the 2d and 3d Battalions. After gaining its objective it was thrown back by a German tank supported attack boiling out of Grosshau.
The Battle for the Hurtgen Forrest lasted from mid-September until mid-December with a cost of more than 40,000 casualties and is considered one of the greatest defeats the U.S. Army ever suffered in its history. The Battle for the Hurtgen Forest abrutly ended on December 15, when US forces were redirected to Ardennes for the Battle of the Buldge.
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SGT Anderson will live on as long as our collective memory of him lives on.
Holden
Grosshau! Thanks for that. The after-action report was tough to read and Grosshau was impossible to make out. I tried googling all sorts of combos of G***sha* in Germany and, although I got returns, I knew none was correct.
Along with Sgt Melvin Anderson, Cpl Joseph Akers remains have also been accounted for. Akers was the driver of the Tank Destroyer while Anderson was the commander. Mel is my Uncle. We are very happy to have finally recovered his and Joe’s remains.