A soldier from Chicago was killed in a WWII attack launched on New Year's Eve 1944. He's finally been accounted for.
A 19-year-old soldier who was killed during World War II has been accounted for, military officials said Thursday.
U.S. Army Pvt. Jeremiah P. Mahoney was assigned to an anti-tank company in Europe during the war, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. Maroney, originally from Chicago, was part of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division.
Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve in 1944, German forces launched a major offensive in the mountains of Alsace-Lorraine, France, surging over Allied defenses along the border of France and Germany, U.S. officials said. The offensive turned into a massive battle stretching over 40 miles. The battle raged for weeks, with Mahoney's unit resupplying and reinforcing his regiment near the French village of Reipertswiller.
On Jan. 17, 1945, Mahoney was killed amid the fighting. His body could not be recovered, and the War Department issued a "Finding of Death" a year later.
In 1946, the American Graves Registration Command began looking for missing American personnel in the area where Mahoney had last been seen. In August 1947, department personnel recovered a set of remains from a forest near Reipertswiller. The remains, and clothing and equipment found with them, were analyzed, but an identification could not be made. The remains were buried as "Unknown" in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, and his name was recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Epinal American Cemetery in France.
Decades later, the DPAA began investigating missing soldiers who died in the Reipertswiller area. They believed that the unknown remains could be Mahoney's. In August 2022, the remains were exhumed and transferred to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis. Scientists used multiple forms of DNA testing, as well as anthropological and circumstantial evidence, to study the remains.
On May 6, 2024, the DPAA positively identified the remains as Mahoney's.
A rosette has been placed beside his name on the Walls of the Missing to indicate that he has been accounted for. His remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on a date to be determined, the DPAA said.
