27-05-2025
World War II soldier from Gravette killed during D-Day invasion to be buried next month
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — A World War II soldier from Gravette who was killed during the D-Day invasion in Normandy will be buried next month, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Monday.
Sanders said during her remarks at the 2025 Memorial Day Observance at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock that U.S. Army Private Rodger D. Andrews, 18, will be laid to rest at a family plot on June 9, more than 81 years after his death.
Andrews had been reported as missing in action (MIA) until June 5, 2024, when the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified his remains. The DPAA made the announcement on Oct. 2.
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He was assigned in June 1944 to Company C of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion in the European Theater.
Andrews was killed in action on the night of June 6, 1944, when Allied forces that had landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy 'suffered heavy losses from enemy shelling and strafing by enemy aircraft', according to his service member profile.
However, it is not known exactly what happened to Andrews during the battle,
'Unfortunately, he did not live to see his 19th birthday,' Sanders said during her remarks on Monday.
Andrews' remains were buried as an unknown in the United States Military Cemetery St. Laurent (now called the Normandy American Cemetery) on June 13, 1944, as they could not be conclusively identified at the time.
The U.S. Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission personnel exhumed Andrews' remains from the Normandy American Cemetery for scientific analysis in March 2019.
Andrews' remains were initially designated X-48 St. Laurent, and he was found to be wearing a belt with the initials 'R.D.A.'
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'However, because items of clothing could have been traded amongst different servicemembers and due to physical similarities between X-48 and other missing servicemembers being too close for officials to make a definite association, the AGRC was unable to identify the remains,' a news release from DPAA in October said.
DPAA received a request from Andrews' family in December 2014 to devote more time to locating him.
Historians reviewed other Omaha Beach losses and reassessed the circumstances of his death. They noted the initials on the belt found with 'X-48' as a possible association.
'After additional historical and scientific comparisons between the personnel data of missing servicemembers from Omaha Beach and the attributes of X-48, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission workers exhumed the Unknown in March 2019 and transferred the remains to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis,' the release said.
Scientists identified Andrews' remains by using anthropological, dental and other circumstantial evidence.
His name is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
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