USA Soldier identified 20 years after Remains recovered

[MelPack]

 

 

Collar discs from Pfc McAllister’s uniform. Jay Silverstein, Author provided

Forensic science cracks the ‘unsolvable’ case of a World War I soldier’s identity, enabling his re-burial

Published: August 8, 2024 1.55pm BST

Author

1. Jay Silverstein

   The Department of Chemistry and Forensics, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Trent University

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Jay Silverstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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In the early hours of July 18, 1918, the Franco-American counter-offensive against German positions began at Aisne-Marne in northern France. The first division of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) drove the German forces back, but not without significant losses.

By the end of the assault, more than 1,000 US soldiers were unaccounted for – the fate of their mortal remains unknown. But 85 years later French archaeologists conducting salvage work ahead of a construction job on what would have been the centre of the battlefield encountered the remains of two American soldiers.

One of the two men, Private Francis Lupo, was easily identified because his name was embossed on his wallet, and he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honours in 2006. But the other man proved more difficult. The remains of Private 1st Class Charles McAllister took two decades to be identified, but the young man will now finally be laid to rest with full military honours in his home town of Seattle. The burial will take place on August 21.

Back in 2004, both soldiers remains were taken to the US military’s central identification laboratory (CIL) of the joint POW/MIA accounting command in Hawaii, where analysis of the evidence began. There is no UK equivalent of this US lab. The UK Ministry of Defence operates a small team called the joint casualty and compassionate centre (JCCC) commemorations team, sometimes known as the “war detectives”. Some ad hoc identification work is also carried out by UK universities.

Discovering the identity of the as yet unidentified remains of Charles McAllister – dubbed CIL 2004-101-I-02 – was deemed impossible at the time.

I was a forensic Archaeologist at the CIL when the remains arrived, and I conducted an analysis of the associated evidence. I concluded that there was a high likelihood that further research could lead to an identification of I-02. The case was passed on to historians and other anthropologists with the organisation, but no headway was made.

But some 14 years later, as we approached the 100-year anniversary of the death of this soldier and the end of the first world war, I reopened the case. However, much had changed politically with the agency in charge of MIAs and I was forced to work on it on my own time. Others volunteered to help as I went through all of the lines of evidence that could be used to establish this man’s identity.

Pfc Charles McAllister. Photo courtesy McAllister family via Jay Silverstein, Author provided (no reuse)

Several lines of evidence could be used to narrow down the possible casualties from the list of soldiers listed as missing in action (MIA) from the Aisne-Marne Battle: the date and location of his death, his possessions and his biological characteristics.

In an ideal world, there would be a database of the missing and I could conduct a preliminary search based on his height, his dental pattern, his age and his ethnicity. Unfortunately, these data only reside within the individual military records stored in the US National Archives. This meant I needed to determine a short list of possible soldiers and request their records.

Long way round

To generate the short list, I first turned to the location and time of his death. I knew when Francis Lupo had gone missing and, since they were buried in the same unmarked grave, it was an easy assumption that they died at approximately the same time, July 21 1918, and in about the same location.

Using military maps of the campaign, I overlaid the remains’ recovery location on battle maps and correlated them with the movement of the advance of US forces. This gave me an estimate of which regiments were in the vicinity, but this could only narrow the basic list to hundreds of MIAs.

The medal for service on the Mexican border. McAllister family via Jay Silverstein, Author provided (no reuse)

The main clues were two buttons on his uniform, one stated “WA” and the other had a “2” and a “D” on it split between two crossed rifles. I discovered that this meant: I-02 had been a member of the Washington State national guard, 2nd regiment, company D, before they were nationalised into the AEF.

There was also a medal awarded for the 1916 campaign against Mexico. As I began to dig into the records of the Washington national guard, I found that they had served on the Mexican border and I discovered a list of those from the 2nd Regiment listed as MIA from France.

By cross-referencing the date range of losses with the losses recorded on the “Tablets of the Missing” at the American battlefield’s monuments at the Aisne-Marne cemetery with the Washington national guard records, I was able to generate a shortlist of four men of Company D. It was then a matter of pulling together the military records of these four men from the national personnel records center (NPRC).

Once the records were in hand, biometrics (physical measurements from the body) could be used to confirm his identity. Only one individual matched the stature estimate of 63 inches (1.6m): Pfc Charles McAllister. Furthermore, his dental chart included extracted first and second molars on the left and right sides of his jaw with his wisdom teeth still intact, a rather unique pattern that matched Pfc McAllister. His estimated age also matched.

Using this information, I conducted genealogical work and found a family member from his matriline in Montana. Beverly Dillon knew the story of her great uncle well and she read me the last letter he wrote as he shipped out to France from New York. Mitochondrial DNA is useful in identification. This is genetic material separate from the nuclear DNA. It is only inherited from the mother’s side and resides in the mitochondria, “organelles” inside our cells. This DNA is passed down from mothers to their children. Beverly’s mitochondrial DNA matched Pfc McAllister.

This gave me enough statistical data to show that it was impossible for the remains to belong to anyone else. Finally, a family member from the male line provided a nuclear Y-chromosome DNA sample. This is genetic material passed down from fathers to sons. The identification of CIL 2004-101-I-02 could no longer be denied, Pfc Charles McAllister could finally be laid to rest with military honours in his hometown, Seattle.

[Matlock1418]

That's impressive work.  Well Done.  May Private 1st Class Charles McAllister RIP 

M

[knittinganddeath]

Great story!

I'd really like to know the rationale for saying that McAllister's remains were unidentifiable back in 2004/2005, and whether the buttons and Mexican war badge were erroneously concluded to be a dead end.

Given American attitudes towards military dead, it seems very strange that they would let McAllister's remains languish in a box in a lab for so long. I would have expected reburial as an unknown after it had been decided that his case was unsolvable. Then again, it was quite shocking to learn that the agency responsible for American soldiers recovered abroad has no remit to care for pre-WWII remains.

[PRC]

23 hours ago, MelPack said:

national personnel records center

Schoolday for me - looks like in most cases there is a US equivalent of a WO364 records for those lost in the St. Louis fire - but they only create them for each individual when a request is received for a copy of one of the affected files. (Unless of course I've mis-understood as usual
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/spotlight-nprc

Cheers,
Peter

[MelPack]

Another story of a recovered American soldier but this time buried as an Unknown in France:

Posted on Feb 15, 2024 By Brian Buckwalter

While digging a new gravesite, a French undertaker discovered artifacts and human bone fragments he suspected were from World War I. He immediately notified the French authorities and set in motion a monthslong process to identify the remains.

While digging a new grave at his French village’s cemetery in early February 2022, undertaker Jean-Paul Feval unearthed the past.

More than a century earlier, during World War I, American and German forces battled all around where Feval stood in Villers-sur-Fère, France. Hundreds of thousands of troops from both sides fought across the region in July and August 1918, and remnants from the war still surface.

“Artifacts are found around here all the time,” said Hubert “Bert” Caloud, the superintendent of the nearby Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial.

Oise-Aisne is one of 26 American military cemeteries around the world that the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) operates and maintains. It started as a temporary battlefield burial ground in 1918 and was dedicated in 1937. More than 6,000 American service members who died in its vicinity are buried there.

But Feval stumbled on more than just artifacts. Along with a trench knife, coat buttons, helmet and rifle rounds, he found human remains.

Feval immediately alerted French authorities, starting a monthslong process to determine the story behind the bones.

In war, there’s sometimes a fine line between death and injury.

Three months after the fighting in Villers-sur-Fère happened and about 100 miles to the east, DAV’s eventual founder, Robert S. Marx, was witnessing this fact firsthand.

French archeologist and World War I expert Yves Desfossés helped excavate a burial site where a French undertaker discovered U.S. military artifacts and human remains at the Villers-sur-Fère, France, cemetery in February 2022.

Marx found himself in command of the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 357th Infantry Regiment, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. All of the regiment’s officers above first lieutenant had been killed when he was sent to take command of the unit.

On Nov. 10, 1918, he was ordered to attack the town of Baâlon, France.

“The barrage was intense, and the shells began to drop with alarming accuracy near our battalion group,” he later wrote. “It seemed to us as if the range was lengthening, so we continued to advance. Then a shell struck almost in our midst. I did not hear it coming, and I seemed to be hit before I knew it or heard the noise. I only knew I was hit in the head.”

He almost died from the blast but continued to direct his troops in the fight as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He was eventually carried off the battlefield and transported to a field hospital for treatment.

The next morning, his surgeon, Capt. J.P. Wall, let him know the war was over. Germany had signed the armistice. Marx was one of the final American casualties of the war.

He would return to his hometown of Cincinnati and resume his pre-military life.

But for many who served in the American Expeditionary Forces, they returned home and entered another fight for the lifetime of care they would need. That’s why Marx established the Disabled American Veterans of the World War as an organization “of us, by us and for us.” More than a century later, that promise to disabled veterans remains the cornerstone of DAV.

That promise extends to those who never made it home, too, said Marty Pennock, the chairman of DAV’s interim POW/MIA Committee. More than 80,000 U.S. service members are still missing from overseas conflicts.

“Every member of DAV—from the national commander on down—fully embraces the obligation of never leaving a fallen comrade behind, no matter how much time has passed,” Pennock said.

The mission of finding, recovering and repatriating service members from World War II and more recent conflicts rests with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The agency’s director, Kelly McKeague, speaking at the 2023 DAV National Convention, told attendees his organization’s mission mirrors DAV’s promise.

“Beyond being a national commitment, our mission is a sacred obligation because these are your comrades-in-arms who made the last full measure of devotion. And it’s a moral imperative because they did so for the nation we all love,” said McKeague.

The ABMC assumes responsibility for those missing from World War I.

The commission’s secretary, Charles Djou, also spoke at DAV’s national convention and said that the overseas cemeteries ABMC is responsible for ensure the memory of U.S. service members around the world.

“[These sites] are proof positive of the power of American service and sacrifice,” Djou said, “and yes, a reminder to our communities, to our people and to humanity to the goodness of the American soul.”

Feval’s discovery quickly got the attention of the Office National des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre—the French government agency that identifies and inters their war dead. If the remains were likely from one of their soldiers, then they’d take possession and responsibility. But the equipment found buried with the remains appeared to be U.S. government issue, so they called Caloud and asked that he be present for the initial excavation of the site.

Finding what were presumably American soldier remains was unheard of in this part of France. Michael Knapp, director of ABMC’s Historical Services Branch, said by the time the U.S. entered World War I, it was more a war of movement than a dug-in battle. The U.S. wasn’t dealing with trench cave-ins and other mass casualty circumstances, so any American remains would likely be just like what Feval discovered: one or maybe two soldiers buried in a battlefield grave.

On Feb. 9, 2022, a day after Feval made his discovery, an initial set of remains and artifacts was removed from the ground and placed in a wooden box. Caloud draped a U.S. flag over the makeshift casket and transported it to the local office of the Gendarmerie Nationale, France’s rural police, for safekeeping until authorities determined the next steps. The gendarmes lined up and saluted as Caloud and his team from Oise-Aisne carried the remains pallbearer-style into the building.

“I treated him like he was one of mine,” Caloud, a retired Marine sergeant major, said.

There was likely more of this unknown soldier to unearth. Two weeks later, Caloud, in cooperation with French authorities and along with French World War I expert and archaeologist Yves Desfossés, excavated the rest of the battlefield grave.

The second dig brought up metal parts of a stretcher, an illegible identification tag and more bone fragments.

Pictures of the artifacts were sent to Knapp’s team for identification. Before a proper burial could happen, there needed to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the nationality of the remains.

Every artifact, from the trench knife to the ammunition, was U.S. government issue, leading Knapp and his team to believe the remains were American.

“There’s just no doubt about it,” he said.

His team also cross-referenced the artifacts with a memoir by the Rev. Francis P. Duffy, a highly decorated Army chaplain with the famed “Rainbow Division.” Duffy mentions that several of the dead from the 165th Regiment, 42nd Division, were buried along the wall of the Villers-sur-Fère cemetery exactly where these remains were found.

French and British authorities concurred with these findings. Although there was no way to determine the identity of the soldier, the remains were American.

Caloud’s focus shifted to planning a funeral at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery. This would be the first burial at this cemetery since 1932 and the first burial of any World War I unknown in an overseas American cemetery since 1988.

On June 7, 2023, the unknown American soldier received a full-honors funeral and was laid to rest with the men he fought beside.

“I just felt happy that he’s with his own guys,” Caloud said.

During the funeral, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville presented the U.S. flag that draped over the soldier’s coffin to the mayor of Villers-sur-Fère as a gift of appreciation. Feval, the local undertaker, died before the funeral, but Caloud said none of this would’ve happened without him.

“Mr. Feval could have easily said, ‘Hey, this trench knife is really cool,’ and then shoved the rest of it back into the dirt,” Caloud said. “So my gratitude to him.”

[JOVE23]

I'm glad to see some more of our boys are coming in from the cold. I wish we would have done more to identify the doughboy they found at Villers-sur-Fère, but like @knittinganddeath said, our government can't do much for our pre-WWII unknowns anymore. There are some private groups and individudals that try their best to identify and recover our doughboys, but there's a lot of red tape and missing documentation in the way.

Allow me to get on my soapbox for a moment!

I'm not sure on the British procedures, but for every American soldier who was killed, a Burial Case File was created and compiled by the War Department.

Example

This file contains, "correspondence, reports, telegrams, applications, and other papers relating to burials of service personnel. These records were compiled from January 1, 1915, to December 31, 1939." Unknown and MIA soldiers also got these files, and when an unknown's details could be linked to a missing soldier's details, the files were merged. Unfortunately, nobody knows where the unknown soldiers' files are now. If we knew where they were, we could identify at least one soldier who was part of the Lost Battalion but who lost his name:

Quote

McGrath was buried in grave 43 (later 87) in a temporary cemetery. No dog tags were affixed to the cross at the foot of the grave, but it did bear McGrath’s initials; somebody knew who he was. Unfortunately, the cross was separated from McGrath’s remains when bodies were transferred to a permanent cemetery the following spring.

“In February 1919, the McGraths sent a letter to the government asking what happened to their son,” Laplander says. “The government was forced to admit it didn’t know where he was, and later said that even though they had not managed to identify a set of remains, they were almost positive he was in one of the unknown graves at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. The family simply had to live with that.”

Long story short: the U files likely include a cemetery address – block, row, grave number – for the remains removed from temporary grave 43/87. Find the U files, find McGrath.

And who knows how many more of our boys we could identify if we had the all the tools we need?

Personally, I'm on the hunt to try to find the swath of missing burial plat maps that cover the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. These were survey maps of battlefield graves done by professional surveyors and engineers during and immediately after the war so recovery parties could locate and recover remains more easily.

Example

The surveys were eventually compiled into plat books, named A through D (at least) Books A-D have been digitized by our National Archives, but as you can see, there's a large hole in the coverage area:

Courtesy the AEF Resources ARCGIS Map

It appears to my untrained eye that that there's a clean enough "break" on the western and southern sides of the coverage gap that there must be a missing book. My great grand uncle's remains were recovered from that unaccounted for area, and although I have a rough coordinate set to mark his original battlefield burial, the thoroughness of these existing surveys would put me literally on the spot where he was first buried. It's been a goal of mine for a long time to find that missing book.