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S/Sgt Woodrow F. Gerdes attended Alton High School.

He enlisted at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri on 15 August 1942. He trained with the 176th Infantry at Camp Lewis, Maryland and was on special guard duty at the White House in Washington D.C. in 1942. He also trained at Fort Benning, Georgia and was sent overseas in June 1944.

With a letter from the War Department, signed by Maj Gen E. F. Witsell, his mother was informed that her son was decleared to have been killed in action an officially declared dead one day and one year after he was reported missing in action: "Since your son, Staff Sergeant Woodrow F. Gerdes, Infantryman, was reported missing in action 9 November 1944, the War Department has entertained the hope that he survived and that information would be revealed dispelling the uncertainty surrounding his absence. However, as in many cases, the conditions of warfare deny us such information. The record concerning your son shows that he was a member of Company K, 110th Infantry Regiment. On 9 November 1944, he participated with his company in combat with the enemy near the town of Vossenack, Germany, in the Huertgen Forest Area. After the battle had ended, your son was found to be missing. Full consideration has recently been given to all available information bearing on the absence of your son and all records had been carefully reviewed and considered. The death of your son has been recorded as of 10 November 1945, the day following the expiration of 12 months absence."

His battalion had been tasked with advancing on the enemy within Raffelsbrand, near the town of Germeter, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. During intense fighting and heavy artillery fire, Gerdes was reported missing in action on 9 November. German forces never reported him as a prisoner of war, nor did U.S. Army officials learn any details of his fate. With no evidence that he survived the fighting, Army officials eventually determined he was killed in action.

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 account for Gerdes’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in November 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-4507 Neuville, recovered from a foxhole near Raffelsbrand in April 1947, possibly belonged to Gerdes. The remains, which had been buried at Ardennes American Cemetery in 1949, were disinterred in June 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

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

S/Sgt Gerdes’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Gerdes will be buried in St. Louis, Missouri, on a date to be determined (information added October 2023).

In December 1946, two remains were found in a foxhole by a German civilian. Both were taken to the identification center at Ardennes Cemetery.

The one remains were quickly identified as belonging to Herbert Neu, also a member of K Company. After all, his Dog Tags had been found in the immediate vicinity.

Through tooth chart comparison it could be determined with great certainty that the second remains had to be S/Sgt Gerdes. However, it wasn't sufficiently certain and therefore these remains were declared unidentifiable.