Army private who died in World War II has been identified almost 80 years after his death

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A young US Army soldier from Chicago who died fighting in World War II has spent nearly 80 years as a nameless remains. Now he has been identified and will be buried at 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 pressed his position at Reipertswiller, France under a fierce counterattack that included heavy artillery and counterfire.

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

“Shells fell,” another soldier in his company wrote in a letter to Mahoney’s mother. “One got close and this guy jumped into the foxhole on top of Mahoney. Then, immediately, another one came bursting into a tree and sprayed shrapnel into this open half-finished hole.”

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

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

Mahoney was first discovered by French deminers in 1947, who located numerous human remains in Reipertswiller. They informed US military officials of their findings, who then ordered that the remains 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 US military cemeteries around the world. Mahoney was laid to rest at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium in 1949.

In the years since Mahoney’s death, forensic techniques and DNA analysis have improved significantly, allowing investigators to crack decades-old cold cases and catch elusive serial killers with only scraps of biological material. The 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 that he finally feels a degree of “familiarity” with his uncle. He also expressed some sadness that Mahoney’s family died immediately before a positive ID was made.

Still, he praised the U.S. Army for continuing to work to identify his uncle all these years later.

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

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

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