Army private who died in WWII identified almost 80 years after his death

A young US Army soldier from Chicago who died fighting in World War II has spent nearly 80 years as nameless remains. Now he's been identified, and will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

The 19-year-old soldier, Jeremiah P Mahoney, was part of an anti-tank company working to counter German forces in France.

In January 1945, the Germans pushed his position at Reipertswiller, France during a fierce counterattack which included heavy artillery and motar fire.

Mahoney was digging a foxhole when the German shelling began, according to theNew York Times.

“Shells were falling,” another soldier in his company wrote in a letter to Mahoney's mother. “One came close and this fellow jumped into the foxhole on top of Mahoney. Then, at once, another one came in bursting in a tree, spraying shrapnel downward into this open half-finished hole.”

Mahoney was killed by the blast. His company was driven out of Reipertswiller by the German push, meaning his body could not immediately be recovered by Allied troops. In 1946, finding no evidence that Mahoney had been captured and with no remains to confirm his death, the US War Department issued a presumptive death finding.

Now, nearly 80 years later, researchers with the Defense Department's POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) — which tries to find and identify the bodies of service members who go missing during wars — believe they've identified Mahoney's remains.

Mahoney was first discovered by French de-mining workers in 1947, who located numerous human remains in Reipertswiller. They informed US military officials of their findings, who then ordered for the remains to be collected and returned to the US for identification.

The 19-year-old's remains were among those found, but due to technological limitations no one could positively identify them.

He — and the other 8,500 sets of American WWII remains that were never identified — were ultimately buried under the name "unknown" in American military cemeteries around the world. Mahoney was laid to rest at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium in 1949.

In the years since Mahoney died, forensic techniques and DNA analysis have improved considerably, allowing investigators to crack decades-old cold cases and catch elusive serial killers with just scraps of biological materials. Those same tools were also used to match Mahoney's name to his remains.

In 2022, Mahoney was exhumed from his grave and his remains were tested against biological samples provided by his living relatives. They matched.

Jerry Mannell, 72, is Mahoney's nephew. The two never met, but he told the Times he finally feels some amount of "familiarity" with his uncle. He also expressed some sadness that Mahoney's immediately family died before a positive ID was made.

Still, he praised the US Army for continuing to work toward identifying his uncle all those years later.

“Kudos to the Army for sticking with this for 75 years,” he told the TImes. “So they truly leave no soldier behind.”

Next spring — 100 years after his birth — Mahoney will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

More than 72,000 Americans who fought in World War II are still awaiting location and identification. 7,500 still remain missing from the Korean War, while the number stands at 1,500 from Vietnam.