On 7 July, the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, a US Government organisation) announced to have positively identified the remains of a soldier, who has been buried as an unknown soldier at the Normandy American Cemetery.
S/Sergeant Gerald L. JACOBSEN, 27 ans, de Little Canada, Minnesota, a été enterré le 14 juillet à Fort Snelling, dans le Minnesota.
Army Staff Sgt. Gerald L. JACOBSEN, 27, of Little Canada, Minnesota, was buried July 14 in Fort Snelling, Minnesota.
On July 15, 1944, JACOBSEN was a member of the 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division, which participated in the siege of Saint-Lô, France. JACOBSEN, who was acting as an artillery spotter, was manning a mortar command post near La Forge, approximately two kilometers northeast of Saint-Lô, when he and another service member went missing.
The other service member’s body was later found near the command post but Jacobsen’s remains were not recovered and he was reported missing in action.
The U.S. Army subsequently declared him deceased as of July 16, 1945.
On July 22, 1944, the remains of an individual, believed to be a member of the 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division, were recovered from the battlefields around Saint-Lô, and were interred at the La Cambe temporary cemetery in France.
The remains were initially identified based on personal letters found with the body. However, further investigation showed that the individual whose letters had been found was not a casualty.
Based on this information, the remains were re-examined, designated as “Unknown X-481” and reinterred. Following additional unsuccessful attempts at identification, Unknown X-481 was interred at U.S. Military Cemetery St. Laurent, now known as Normandy American Cemetery.
In July 2016, Jacobsen’s family requested X-481 be disinterred based on the presence of a laundry mark found on clothing recovered with the remains. Researchers from DPAA worked closely with the historian of the 35th Infantry Division to marshal evidence to support a recommendation to disinter X-481.
Scientific analysis of data on file also found sufficient evidence to support a recommendation to disinter. After receipt of approval, the remains were disinterred from the Normandy American Ceremony on Nov. 21, 2016 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.
To identify Jacobsen’s remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial (mtDNA) analysis, which matched a brother and a sister, as well as dental and anthropological analysis, and historical evidence. Gerald's wife Catherine (94) had been waiting 73 years for her husband to come home. Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, just over 73,000 service members are still unaccounted for (listed as missing in action, "MIA").
But with the identification of John Anderson in April last year, and now Gerald JACOBSEN, two men who were buried as unknown soldiers for all that time, their families finally have closure.
I always mention this on a tour: there is still hope for thousands more families that they might have closure too. Last week, Flo visited the cemetery and the Wall of the Missing. Gerald now too has his bronze rosette, which means that there are a total of 17 rosettes on the wall of the missing.
The remains of 17 men who have been found and identified since the cemetery was officially inaugurated in July 1956.
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