Memorial

More information

Pfc Marvin E. Dickson graduated from Arsenal Technical High School, where he attended the ROTC program.

He enlisted in Indianapolis, Indiana on 26 June 1943. He was sent overseas in July 1944.

Pfc Dickson was officially decleared dead one day and one year after he was reported missing in action.

He was tasked with facilitating communication among various battle elements by laying telephone wire between headquarters and outposts in the Hürtgen Forest in Germany. Dickson was reportedly killed in the early morning hours of 13 November 1944, when he and other soldiers moved to the front lines to reestablish broken telephone communications. According to witnesses, one man was killed and three were wounded. However, surviving members could not confirm Dickson’s death, nor provide the exact location to where he was killed. He was subsequently listed as missing in action.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command extensively searched the Hürtgen Forest, to locate Dickson’s remains. Unable to make a correlation with any remains found in the area, he was declared non-recoverable.

In April 1947, a set of remains was recovered from District #21 of the Raffelsbrand sector of the Hürtgen Forest after hit was found by a local farmer. The remains were located in a dug-out and were not buried. The remains were sent to the central processing point at Neuville, Belgium. They were unable to be identified, were designated X-5406, and buried at Ardennes American Cemetery on 13 April 1950. The cause of death was probably small arms fire or schrapnel.

Based upon the original recovery location of X-5406, a DPAA historian determined that there was a possible association between the remains and Dickson. In April 2017, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission disinterred X-5406 and accessioned the remains to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

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

He was given his final resting place next to his grandparents in the Shannondale Cemetery in Shannondale, Indiana on 8 June 2019.

A rosette will be placed next to his name at the Walls of the Missing at Margraten.