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News Release

Press Release | Nov. 22, 2022

Soldier Accounted For From World War II (Gunnoe, J.)

WASHINGTON  –   The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Cpl. Joseph H. Gunnoe, 21, of Charleston, West Virginia, killed during World War II, was accounted for Sept. 14, 2022.

In November 1944, Gunnoe was assigned to Company G, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. His unit captured the town of Vossenack, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest, on Nov. 2 and held it against constant German artillery and small arms fire, until finally forced to withdraw on Nov. 6. Due to the circumstances of the battle, Company G was not able to take a full accounting of the survivors until days after the fighting. Gunnoe was among the missing. Survivors had no information regarding his fate. The Army reported him missing in action as of Nov. 9. Graves registration teams did not recover or identify his body after the battle, and the Germans never reported him as a prisoner of war. He was declared killed in action after the war.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. They conducted several investigations in the Hürtgen area between 1946 and 1950, but were unable to recover or identify Gunnoe’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in October 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-2775 Neuville, recovered near Vossenack in June 1946, possibly belonged to Gunnoe. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium, in 1949, were disinterred in July 2021 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification.

To identify Gunnoe’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.

Gunnoe’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Margraten, Netherlands, along with the others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Gunnoe will be buried on Dec. 14, 2022, in Charleston, West Virginia.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

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.

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 https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.

Gunnoe’s personnel profile can be viewed at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000Xjq5EAC.