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Military officials announced Thursday that the whereabouts of a 19-year-old soldier who died during World War II has been determined.
U.S. Army Private First Class Jeremiah P. Maloney was assigned to an anti-tank company in Europe during the war, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced in a news release. Maloney was originally from Chicago and served in the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division.
Shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1944, German forces launched a major offensive in the mountains of Alsace-Lorraine, France, breaking through Allied defenses along the French-German border, U.S. officials said. . The attack resulted in a massive battle spanning over 40 miles. The fighting raged for several weeks, with Mahoney’s men resupplying and reinforcing the regiment near the French village of Leipartswiller.
(On January 17, 1945, Mahoney was killed in action. His body was never recovered, and a year later the War Department issued a “mortality investigation.”
U.S. Army Private First Class Jeremiah P. Mahoney. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
In 1946, the American Cemetery Registry Command began searching for missing American personnel in the area where Mahoney was last seen. In August 1947, department personnel recovered a series of bodies from the woods near Leipartswiller. The body and the clothing and equipment found with it were analyzed, but no identification could be made. His body was buried as “unknown” at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, and his name was recorded on the missing persons wall at the Epinal American Cemetery in France.
Decades later, the DPAA began an investigation into the missing soldiers who died in the Leipartswiller area. They believed the unknown body could be Mahoney’s. In August 2022, the remains were exhumed and transported to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. Scientists studied the ruins using multiple forms of DNA testing, as well as anthropological and circumstantial evidence.
On May 6, 2024, the DPAA positively identified the remains as Mahoney’s.
A rosette has been placed next to his name on the Missing Persons Wall to indicate that his name has been confirmed. His remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on a date to be determined, according to the DPAA.
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