Mark P. Wilson WWII, identified after more than 7 decades
Mark P. Wilson WWII, identified after more than 7 decades
Mark P. Wilson Death – After being deemed non-recoverable in the 1950s, a World War II soldier from East Tennessee is again returning home. U.S. Army Pfc. Mark P. Wilson, 20, of Elizabethton, Tennessee was accounted for on September 15 12, 2022. Wilson and his regiment were in Kommerscheidt, Germany’s Hürtgen Forest, in November 1944. He was entrusted to the 28th Infantry Division’s Company A, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment. He was listed as missing in action on November 8. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), the Germans never reported him as a prisoner of war and his body was unable to be found.
Mark P. Wilson confirmed dead
Wilson was pronounced dead in action following the conflict. The American Graves Registration Command tried to locate American service members who had gone missing in Europe after World War II. They carried out a number of searches in the Hürtgen region between 1946 and 1950. Wilson’s remains, however, were not recovered or identified, according to the DPAA. His non-recoverability was determined in November 1951. A DPAA historian discovered Wilson may have been the owner of a pair of unidentified remains found in Kommerscheidt in April 1947 while researching unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen region. The remains were exhumed in July 2021 and transferred to Offutt Air Force Base’s DPAA laboratory for identification.
Analyses of Y chromosomal DNA
The remains had been interred in 1949 in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium’s Ardennes American Cemetery, a location managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission. To identify the remains, DPAA scientists used anthropological studies and circumstantial evidence. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System experts used this information, coupled with analyses of Y chromosomal DNA (Y-STR), autosomal DNA (auSTR), and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), to identify the remains as belonging to Wilson. Along with the other World War II veterans still unaccounted for, Wilson is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, a location managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission near Plombières, Belgium.
Army Pfc from Kingston
A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been located, according to the DPAA. Wilson is one of numerous Tennessee troops whose remains have been identified by DPAA who were killed in the Hürtgen region. On September 14, 2020, Pvt. Warren G.H. DeVault of Rhea, who perished during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, was found. William F. Delaney, an Army Pfc from Kingston, was reported missing on December 17, 2018. Lewis E. Price, an Army Pfc from Rogersville, was located in September 2018. It’s thought that all four soldiers passed away in November 1944.
PC: Ashley Hoak
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