A young US Army soldier from Chicago who died fighting in World War II has spent nearly 80 years as nameless remains. Now he’s been identified , and will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery .
The 19-year-old soldier, Jeremiah P Mahoney, was part of an anti-tank company working to counter German forces in France .
In January 1945, the Germans pushed his position at Reipertswiller, France during a fierce counterattack which included heavy artillery and motar fire.
Mahoney was digging a foxhole when the German shelling began, according to the New York Times .
“Shells were falling,” another soldier in his company wrote in a letter to Mahoney’s mother. “One came close and this fellow jumped into the foxhole on top of Mahoney. Then, at once, another one came in bursting in a tree, spraying shrapnel downward into this open half-finished hole.”
Mahoney was killed by the blast. His company was driven out of Reipertswiller by the German push, meaning his body could not immediately be recovered by Allied troops. In 1946, finding no evidence that Mahoney had been captured and with no remains to confirm his death, the US War Department issued a presumptive death finding.