Memorial

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Pvt Jacob W. Givens enlisted at Fort Thomas, Newport, Kentucky on 24 March 1944.

He was declared officially dead one day and one year after he was reported missing in action.

On 20 June 2019 the DPAA announced that Pvt Givens was accounted for on 17 June 2019.

He was reported missing in action as of 20 October 1944, when his company reorganized after a severe counterattack and he could not be accounted for.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command extensively searched the Hürtgen Forest for him. No remains found in the area were identified as Givens, and the Army declared him non-recoverable.

While studying unresolved American losses in and unidentified remains recovered from the Hürtgen Forest, DPAA personnel analyzed historical documentation regarding X-5483 Neuville, a set of unidentified remains recovered on 15 May 1947 from District #20C of the Hürtgen Forest by the AGRC. The remains had originally been found by a German woodcutter who later led an AGRC team to the site. The AGRC team found the remains lying on the ground, surrounded by U.S. Army infantry equipment. The remains, designated X-5483, could not be identified, and were interred at the United States Military Cemetery Neuville (present day Ardennes American Cemetery).

Based upon the original recovery location of X-5483, a DPAA historian determined that there was a likely association between the remains and Givens. In June 2018, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission disinterred X-5483 and accessioned the remains to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

Pvt Givens has been given his final resting place on 9 November 2019 in Prestonburg, Kentucky.