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Pvt Walter G. Wildman was employed by the Hunter Manufacturing Corporation.

He enlisted on 2 March 1943 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A short time after his arrival in France, Pvt. Walter Wildman had been seriously wounded in action on 25 June 1944 when he was shot in the jaw. For his recovery he was hospitalized in England and returned to his unit on 16 September 1944. For this wound he was awarded the Purple Heart Medal a first time.

In November 1944, his unit was part of the Hürtgen Forest offensive when he was reported killed in action on 13 November. Because of the fighting, his body was unable to be recovered.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) 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 Wildman’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in December 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-5441 Neuville, originally discovered by a German demining team and recovered by the AGRC in 1947, possibly belonged to Wildman. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery, were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.

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

On 3 February 2022, The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that Pvt. Wildman was accounted for.

He has been given his final resting place on 23 May 2022 in Newton, Pennsylvania.

His brother Maurice served in New Guinea where he was involved in a jeep accident. He suffered a fracture of his skull.