PFC Lonnie Eichelberger comes home

Hondo told us that the earthly remains of Private First Class Lonnie Eichelberger were identified in May and the Washington Post reports that he was returned to his family yesterday and laid to his eternal rest in the Houston National Cemetery.

PFC Eichelberger, assigned to I Company, 371st Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry Division, was killed in the closing days of the Second World War on 10 February 1945 in Italy.

“It has brought closure that he has been identified,” said his great-nephew, Cheyenne Eichelberger, who explained that family members knew only that his uncle was killed in action somewhere in Europe.

Army officials notified the family in 2016 that Defense Department scientists had identified the remains using dental and anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence.

Pfc. Eichelberger enlisted at a time the Army was segregated and he was assigned to the 92nd Infantry Division, which in 1944 and 1945 fought at the westernmost portion of the Allied line in northern Italy, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, an arm of the Defense Department.

“That’s the forgotten piece,” Cheyenne Eichelberger said Wednesday. “Minorities have served in every war and conflict that America has been involved in.”

His uncle was declared missing after a battle near Strettoia, Italy. Remains recovered near there after the war in Europe ended could not be identified and eventually were buried in 1949 at the American cemetery in Florence, Italy, designated as remains X-193.

Category: We Remember