I wonder how many other MIA cases this applies to? "A family of a Canadian soldier killed during the Second World War believe that they may finally have found his remains after he was mistakenly buried as an unknown soldier in a German cemetery. Like hundreds of British Tommies and American GIs, Lawrence S Gordon, a Canadian who had volunteered to serve in France with the U.S. Army, found himself without a jacket having lost his own during fighting at the Battle of Normandy 69 years ago. It is likely that he helped himself to a German military jacket from a pile of garments taken from prisoners of war who had surrendered. Little did he know that his 'borrowing' of a German battledress top would lead his family to wonder for six decades what ever had become of him and whether he was really alive or dead. On August 13, 1944, Private First Class Gordon was killed in Normandy with another soldier in the turret of a machine gun-armored car. When his body was removed his dog-tag identification was missing but a bloodstained wallet found in his pocket helped to work out who he was. It was eventually sent back to his family in Canada with a letter explaining that his wallet had been found but not his body. His family believe that because Gordon was wearing a German jacket, a mistake was made and he was believed to be an enemy soldier by the Allies. They think that his remains were eventually placed in a cask and interred at a German cemetery at Heines Sur Mer in Normandy along with the bones of 12,000 other soldiers, many unidentified. During the chaos in France following the D-day invasion of Normandy in 1944, supplies of uniforms were low down on the list of logistical priorities." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2421058/DNA-testing-reveal-remains-belong-Lawrence-S-Gordon-Hitlers-Wermacht.html#ixzz2ezdnOzkb
Very sad and kind of scary. Are they identifying the remains has his through DNA testing I presume? Frightening to think that this could have happened often, with the numbers of unknown dead.
Latest http://www.propublica.org/article/french-germans-return-fallen-gi-after-pentagon-gives-up http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/801751-honoring-a-commitment-the-full-report.html
There are several cases in both World wars of soldiers The CWGC headstones simply say " a Soldier of the great War" "1949-45". Some of the bodies may may well be German or Italian. The Commonwealth War Cemeteries include the graves of other nations including German war dead. The oldest part of the Tyne Cot Cemetery on Passchendaele Ridge contains one identified German who died the day the position was captured and two unidentified Germans, presumably buried when the first graves were dug. The Germans who died of wounds as prisoners of war were also buried in CWC . There is a whole block in the Bayeaux CWC. There is central mass grave in the German cemetery at Langemark. This contyaisn the remains of the dead re-interred after WW2 when the Belgians refused to renew the leases on the some of the cemeteries established after WW1. The memorial stones around it list 24,000 German names and contain memorial plaques to two British soldiers interred there by mistake.
*bump* for an update- "MILWAUKEE — An American forensic lab announced Monday it has independently confirmed through DNA testing that the remains recovered from a German ossuary in France are indeed U.S. Army Pfc. Lawrence S. Gordon, who was mistakenly buried with the enemy after World War II. DNA was extracted from bones by the national crime lab in France after Wisconsin filmmaker Jed Henry's dogged research through military records led to a crypt of an unknown soldier identified as a German. The French crime lab announced in February that it had a mitochondrial DNA match, meaning the results matched DNA from maternal relatives of Gordon's. Samples then were sent to a DNA testing facility at University of Wisconsin-Madison and to Bode Technology Group in Lorton, Va., for independent confirmation. Bode not only confirmed the French crime lab's results on Monday, but announced that it did a more specific nuclear DNA profile for further proof of identification — all within eight days of receiving the DNA samples from France. The DNA facility at University of Wisconsin-Madison will begin its testing this week. In addition to confirming the Virginia lab's results, the UW-Madison lab is working on refining techniques for recovering DNA from bones and teeth that are 70 years old and older. Henry became interested in the Gordon case because his grandfather, Staff Sgt. David L. Henry of Viroqua, served in the same reconnaissance company, and Gordon was the only member of the company who died and was not identified for a proper burial. The U.S. military accounting community refused to help confirm the remains in the German crypt were Gordon's, but French and German officials agreed to allow DNA to be extracted and tested in hopes of identifying the soldier." http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/dna-test-is-latest-to-confirm-id-of-american-wwii-soldier-buried-in-germany-1.276841#.U0L2oIXBEmw.facebook
Just readiing the first story...How did they know he put on a german coat? How are they identifying the body now...In other words how did they know which body to test?
The second link I provided is an extensive presentation of the evidence. Repeated link: http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/801751-honoring-a-commitment-the-full-report.html IMO, that he wore a German coat is speculation. I suspect the coat was used to collect the remains by a unit other than Graves Registration. He was originally buried and recorded next to his crew-mate in a US temporary cemetery. He was not buried in a German cemetery until after the war and they documented everything. ***EDIT*** I tried to re-phrase my final paragraph: One mystery for me is how the wallet was separated from the remains? The wallet was identified but they could not make the body identification. The wallet had a family picture which his buddies might identify but how could Graves Registration make the wallet identification but not know which remains the wallet came from?
