Four More Are Home
DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US military personnel.
From World War II
• Pfc Nicholas J. Cancilla, Company B, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, 2nd Marine Division, USMCR, was lost on 20 November 1943 on Tarawa Atoll. He was accounted for on 6 September 2016.
• Pfc James S. Smith, Company C, 2nd Amphibious Tractor Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, USMC, was lost on 20 November 1943 on Tarawa Atoll. He was accounted for on 6 September 2016.
From Korea
• CPL Vernon D. Presswood, Heavy Mortar Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 2 December 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 6 September 2016.
• CPL Donald R. Hendrickson, Headquarters Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, 31st Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 6 December 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 7 September 2016.
Welcome back, elder brothers-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.
You’re home now. Rest in peace.
. . .
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.
Category: No Longer Missing
Two years ago on June 6 2014 I took my kids out to the Manila American Cemetery run by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The Hemicycle there includes the names of over 36,000 Missing from WWII in the Pacific and CBI theater. When these elder brothers-in-arms are identified a little marker goes next to their names on the wall.
Perhaps on our next visit in a few years we’ll see many more indicators of remains recovered/identified on the Hemicycle.
Once in a while, when I research the names, I come upon one that gives me great pause. That happened this morning with the name of Marine Nicholas Cancilla. He was from Altoona, Pennsylvania, one of two children born to Italian immigrants Frank and Maria Cancilla. Their oldest child, Frank, Jr., was 18 in 1940 and his little brother, Nicholas, was then 14. Both boys joined the service, Frank to the Navy and Nicolas to the Marines. Frank served in the Pacific, on Landing Craft Patrol Boat 39050 and survived the war. (One wonders whether the brothers were in action together and, if so, whether Frank delivered his brother to a beach.) Frank married and, in 1946, Frank and his wife had a son. They named him Nicholas, no doubt in honor of Frank’s brother. Nicholas joined the Navy and was trained as a gunner on a river boat. In 1968, he was sent to Vietnam (PBR-148, RIVDIV 571, TF 116, USNAVFORV) and on 27 March 1969, his boat was engaged in a fight in Kien Tuong Province. It was in this fight that Nicholas Cancilla fell. His name can be found on The Wall at Panel 28, Line 44.
Nicholas Cancilla. The names of two American fighting men that I will not soon forget. And to the Cancilla family of Altoona, Pennsylvania, I can only offer my humblest thanks.
2/17 Air Cav…Thank you for the thoughtful information.
Welcome home brothers. Rest in peace in your home soil. God be with your families now.
That these men are not just names means much to me. I like to think that 50 years from now, someone will comes across TAH archived pages and also remember that these servicemen were real human beings with folks whom they loved, loved them, and that they were not forgotten and relegated to casualty statistics.
Agreed, the same with the WWI, Civil War and the Revolutionary war…I had relatives in ALL of them!
Welcome Home soldiers
Rest well brothers
Salute….
Welcome home, gentlemen; thank you for your service.
Welcome to your return to home soil. You were gone but never forgotten.