A McDowell County man who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country during World War II and rested unidentified for decades in a French cemetery will be laid to rest July 20 on American soil.
U.S. Army PFC Mose E. Vance, a soldier killed during World War II, will be interred July 20 at Vance Cemetery in the McDowell County community of Paynesville. Fanning Funeral Home in Iaeger will perform graveside services preceding the interment.
A native of Bradshaw, Vance was a soldier with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division in the European Theater. He was killed in action Jan. 11, 1945, at age 21, after German forces launched a major offensive operation on Dec. 31, 1944, in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace-Lorraine, France, known as Operation NORDWIND, according to Fonda Bock with the U.S. Army Human Resources Command Public Affairs Office.
Operation NORDWIND was launched to support another German offense to the north called Operation Watch on the Rhine. This northern offense, which aimed to capture the Allied port at Antwerp, led to what is best known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Vance was accounted for on Jan. 5 this year by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency after his remains were exhumed August 2022 from the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France, known today as Lorraine American Cemetery, Bock said in the Army’s announcement.
The Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, under the Army Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Operations Division at the U.S. Army Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky, plays a key role in the process of locating family members of missing soldiers from WWII, the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
The process begins with locating the family member most closely related to the missing soldier, known as the primary next of kin, followed by a request for family reference samples or DNA, which are used as a main source in identifying remains, Bock said.
Once a soldier has been identified by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, the PCRB notifies and briefs the family about the results of historical, forensic and DNA reports, benefits and the mortuary process including burial with full military honors, Bock said.
PFC Vance’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery in Dinozé, France, along with others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
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