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News Release

Press Release | Nov. 1, 2019

Soldier Accounted For From World War II (Lochowicz, E.)

WASHINGTON  –   The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Army Pfc. Eugene E. Lochowicz, 19, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killed during World War II, was accounted for on July 24, 2019.

(This identification was initially released July 29, 2019.)

In early 1945, Lochowicz was a member of Company A, 28th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. On Feb. 23, 1945, he went missing while his unit crossed the Roer River under fire, near Lendersdorf, Germany. Members of his unit later concluded that he had been lost when one of the boats capsized. All efforts to find him were unsuccessful.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, was the unit tasked with investigation and recovery of missing American personnel. In February 1949, AGRC investigators were in the area where Lochowicz was lost, but were unsuccessful in finding his remains.

In 2017, in response to inquiries from Lochowicz’s family regarding unknown remains recovered around Lendersdorf, a DPAA historian reviewed documents of X-285 Margraten, which had been pulled from the river near where Lochowicz went missing. The remains, which could not be identified when they were found in 1945, had subsequently been buried at the United States Military Cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands. Based upon the location and circumstances of recovery, the DPAA historian concluded that Lochowicz was a likely candidate for association.

In September 2018, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission disinterred X-285 and accessioned the remains to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

To identify Lochowicz’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

DPAA is grateful to the American Battle Monuments Commission and to the U.S. Army Regional Mortuary-Europe/Africa for their partnership in this mission.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died during the war. Currently there are 72,648 service members still unaccounted for from World War II with approximately 30,000 assessed as possibly recoverable. Lochowicz’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Margraten, Netherlands, along with the others missing from WWII. Although interred as an Unknown, Lochowicz’s grave was meticulously cared for by ABMC for 70 years. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

For family information, contact the Army Service Casualty office at (800) 892-2490.

Lochowicz will be buried Nov. 16, 2019, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or call (703) 699-1420/1169.

Lochowicz’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000XdnNEAS