A Whitehall Township soldier who went missing during one of World War II’s longest and bloodiest battles will be buried with full military honors next week, nearly 82 years after he was killed in action in a dense German forest, the township has announced.
Private First Class Howard G. Krapf, who served with Company B, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, was killed Nov. 8, 1944, during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest along the Belgian-German border. His remains were identified through DNA analysis and will be interred at Fairview Cemetery, 2584 Lehigh St., Whitehall, next to his mother, Stella V. (Clay) Krapf.
Krapf entered the Army on Nov. 13, 1942. His unit had fought across northern France and Belgium before moving into the Hürtgen Forest in early November 1944 in anticipation of a major offensive. On Nov. 8, at around 2 p.m., Krapf was struck in the hand by enemy fire. The wound caused him to rise from cover, at which point German machine gun fire killed him…