Another Three Return
DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US personnel.
From World War II
PVT Donald E. Brown, US Army, assigned to A Company, 745th Tank Battalion, was lost in France on 28 July 1944. He was accounted for on 29 June 2018.
PFC Willard Jenkins, US Army, assigned to C Company, 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion (307th AEB), 82nd Airborne Division, was lost in The Netherlands on 20 September 1944. He was accounted for on 5 July 2018.
From Korea
PFC Joe S. Elmore, US Army, assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, was lost in North Korea on 2 December 1950. He was accounted for on 5 July 2018.
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 72,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,600 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; over 1,500 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA); 126 remain unaccounted for from the Cold War; 5 remain unaccounted for from the Gulf Wars; and 1 individual remains unaccounted for from Operation Eldorado Canyon. 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
Welcome Home Fallen Warriors, Rest In Peace.
Welcome home.
I served in Cco 307th for five years, I remember PFC Jenkins name from the WW2 vets story’s. Welcome home airborne brother.
Cyclone Charlie.
ATW
They would also tell their story of paddling across the Wall river in broad daylight.
BBB
Do you remember any details from the WWII’s vets’ stories regarding PFC Willard Jenkins? I am curious to learn more about him. He was my great-uncle; my grandmother was his sister. We are excited that he has been found and will soon be buried among family!
PFC “Bud” Jenkins hailed from Scranton, Pennsylvania. As DPAA reports, he was operating the rudder on one of the boats used to cross the Waal during Operation Market Garden when he was hit and was lost overboard. The Waal River crossing is legendary in US military history and is re-enacted yearly by members of the 82nd. There is a monument at Fort Bragg, commemorating the incredible bravery and fortitude of those men and the effort has been memorialized in film.
This is worth watching. It’s about the crossing. It’s about American valor and American kindness.
I don’t suppose you can link the scene of the crossing from A Bridge to Far (1977) with its all star cast?
CPL Kero earned a DSC posthumously for trying to hold off a German Flack Track with its 20MM canons with just an M1 & a loose handful of ammo that was removed from an BAR magazine, After the first landing. He ordered his men back to the boats for to make another four round trips across the river,
On 28 July 1944, the 745th Tank Battalion was in France, attached to the First Infantry Division. Three days earlier, the unit began its part in Operation Cobra, a land and air attack on German forces key to Allied victory in the Normandy campaign. At 0815, Company A rolled into a heavily fortified German position that occupied higher ground than the American tanks and infantry. The ensuing battle was fierce and the unit lost a number of tanks and their crews. The remaining tanks and infantry withdrew and heavy artillery was successfully brought to bear on the Germans. For some men, including a young Iowan named Donald E. Brown, the call for artillery came too late.
Welcome home.
PFC Joe Stanton Elmore was a long way from Clinton county, Kentucky when he was lost on the eastern shore of Chosin Reservoir on 2 December 1950.
Forever 20. Welcome home, Joe.
Welcome home, men.
Rest well.
Welcome home Brothers. Rest in peace in your home soil.
Welcome home, gentlemen.
Thank you, 2/17 Air Cav, for researching and posting the history of the fallen. I certainly appreciate the perspective it adds to Hondo’s weekly remembrances, and doubtless am not alone in this.
If no one read a word here about the men once relegated to the missing and finally identified and returned home, I would still do what I do and, no doubt, so too would Hondo and Jonn. But people do read and welcome them home, and I am grateful for that, not for myself but for these men, their families, and the country that did not forget about them.
2/17, I thanked you last year for your research and want to thank you again for ‘putting a face’ on these young men.
And to those coming home, I am humbled by your ultimate sacrifice.
Ditto, 2/17. Thank you for your efforts. And Hondo and Jonn.
Welcome home, brothers. Rest in Peace.
Welcome Home.