Memorial

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Pvt Warren G.H. De Vault enlisted at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia on 14 November 1942.

Pvt De Vault was reported killed in action on 20 November but his remains could not be recovered because of the ongoing fighting.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on 15 September 2020 that Pvt De Vault was accounted for on 14 September 2020.

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 DeVault’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in January 1952.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-5429 Neuville, recovered from the Hürtgen Forest in 1947 possibly belonged to DeVault. These remains were found, not buried and in skeletal state in a wooded area, north of Vossenack. In November 1944, this area was a target of artillery fire.

The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in 1951, were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification.

To identify DeVault’ remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and 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.

DeVault’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Margarten, 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.

DeVault is given his finale resting place on 14 August 2021 in Dayton, Tennessee.