Memorial

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Pfc David N. Owens joined the National Guard in Charlotte, North Carolina on 16 September 1940 and was sent overseas in January 1945.

He was officially declared dead one day and one year after he was reported missing 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 recover or identify Owens’ remains. He was declared non-recoverable in December 1950. While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-2707 Neuville, recovered near Hürtgen in 1946 possibly belonged to Owens. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium, in 1950, were disinterred in August 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification. Owens’ 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. Owens will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, at a date yet to be determined (information added August 2022)