Washington –
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Tech Sgt. Thomas O. Moss, 31, of Brim, Virginia, killed during World War II, was accounted for August 6, 2024.
In November 1944, Moss was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. His battalion had captured the town of Kommerscheidt, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. A series of heavy German counterattacks eventually forced his battalion to withdraw. Moss was reported killed in action on Nov. 7., while fighting enemy forces at Kommerscheidt. His remains could not be recovered after the attack.
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 Moss’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in November 1951.
While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one of three sets of unidentified remains, designated X-6566, X-6567 and X-6568, recovered from a mass grave at Kommerscheidt in April 1946, possibly belonged to Moss. 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 Aug. 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification.
To identify Moss’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.
Moss’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Plombières, Belgium, 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.
Moss will be buried in Salisbury, North Carolina, on Nov. 22, 2024
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 , or on social media at , , , or .