Missing WWII soldier from Central City accounted for
Officials said U.S. Army Pfc. Kenneth D. Burgess was accounted for on September 13, 2024.
Officials state in September 1943, Burgess was assigned to Company B, 4th Ranger Battalion 'Darby's Rangers' in the Mediterranean Theater. Officials say on September 25 of that year, Burgess was reported killed in action in the vicinity of the Sala, Italy, during Operation AVALANCHE.
Officials say his body was not recovered, and the Germans never reported him as a prisoner of war, so the War Department declared him non-recoverable on May 10, 1948.
In 1947, Army Graves Registration Service investigators recovered remains from a cemetery in the village of San Nicola. Said remains were designed as X-152, but investigators were unable to associate X-152 with nearby casualties. The remains were interred at U.S. Military Cemetery, Nettuno, which is now Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.
Officials state in 2019, while studying unresolved American losses in Operation AVALANHCE, a historian compiled unit records, company morning reports and grave registration records that indicated Burgess was likely lost in the vicinity of the X-152 recovery location, so members from the Department of Defense and the American Battle Monuments Commission disinterred the remains in March 2022 and sent them to a DPAA lab for identification.
To identify Burgess' remains, scientists used anthropological, circumstantial and mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Officials state Burgess' name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, and a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Burgess will be buried in Central City in May 2025.
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