Lost in 1944, WWII Soldier Returns Home to Pennsylvania for Final Rest
In late 1944, Knecht was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action on Nov. 6 during an intense period of combat near the town of Germeter in the Hürtgen Forest of Germany. The exact circumstances of his loss are unknown. Knecht’s remains were not accounted for after the war and he was declared non-recoverable.
Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. Search teams conducted several investigations and recoveries in the Hürtgen Forest between 1946 and 1950, and in April 1946, an AGRC team recovered a set of unknown remains from the woods southwest of the town of Hürtgen, Germany. The remains, later designated X-2482 Neuville, were transferred to the United States Military Cemetery Neuville (now the Ardennes American Cemetery) in Belgium for potential identification. All efforts to identify the remains were unsuccessful and they were interred as an Unknown.
In 2019, a DPAA historian analyzed AGRC reports regarding X-2482 Neuville and recommended the remains be disinterred for scientific comparison to several American soldiers missing near Germeter, including Knecht. In August 2022, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission exhumed the X-2482 remains and transferred them to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency accounted for Knecht on Sept. 19, 2026.
For more information on DPAA’s efforts to locate and identify Knecht, please visit: https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/ID-Announcements/Article/4623534/soldier-accounted-for-from-world-war-ii-knecht-c/
U.S. Army Human Resources Command’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch plays a vital role in the process of identifying, locating and contacting subsequent generation family members of Soldiers missing or killed in action during WWII and the Korean War to positively identify previously undiscovered or unknown remains.
Media interested in covering and/or obtaining more information about the funeral and interment should contact Heller Funeral Home, 570-752-7121.
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