John Joseph Sitarz was a United States soldier who was killed in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest during World War II on November 2, 1944.
His remains were discovered in 1946 and identified on May 27, 2020.
Case[]
Background[]
John Sitarz was born in 1925 in Weirton, West Virginia. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army from West Virginia. John became a Private First Class and served in Company L, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division.
Between September 19 and December 16, 1944, the 28th Infantry Division fought in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, a series of battles in and around the German forest between them and Nazi Germany. When his unit was fighting German forces north of the town of Germeter on November 2, John had stepped on a landmine. His fellow soldiers were unable to reach him, and he was reported missing after the battle.
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a defensive victory for Germany, with 33,000-55,000 casualties on the American side and 28,000 on the German side. It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the second-longest single battle the US Army has fought.
Aftermath[]
John was declared dead on November 3, 1945. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
Between 1945 and 1951, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) was tasked to recover and identify the remains of United States soldiers during the European Theatre. While they were able to locate and identify most of the soldiers killed in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, John was not among them. In September 1951, the AGRS ruled him unrecoverable.
John was memorialized at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial in Henri-Chapelle, Belgium.
In 1946, the skeletal remains of a United States soldier, with multiple gunshot wounds to the head, were discovered from a minefield near Germeter. The soldier, dubbed "X-2785 Neuville," was buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupré, Belgium, in 1949 after he could not be identified.
Identification[]
In 2018, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) historian noticed similarities between Sitarz and "X-2785 Neuville." Later that year, "X-2785 Neuville" was exhumed and transported to the DPAA laboratory at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for identification. At the lab, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used Y-chromosome DNA analysis, while DPAA scientists employed dental and anthropological analysis, along with other forms of circumstantial evidence.
Through these methods, the remains were identified as John Joseph Sitarz on May 27, 2020. His identification was announced on May 29, 2020, and again on June 7, 2021.
He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.