Memorial

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Pfc Noah C. Reeves enlisted at Fort McClellan, Alabama on 19 October 1942. He trained at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

His battalion had been engaged with heavily fortified German forces near the town of Vossenack, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest, when he was reported killed in action on 6 December 1944. Shortly after the firefight, both sides held a temporary truce along the Kall River gorge to recover their wounded and dead. A German officer handed over Reeves’ identification tags and pay book, attesting to both his death and recovery by German forces. Members of his unit were not able to recover his body from the Germans before fighting resumed. Pfc. Reeves’ remains were not accounted for following the war.

At 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 Reeves’ remains. He was declared non-recoverable in November 1951.

In 1948, a set of unidentified remains was discovered in the Hürtgen Forest on the heavily wooded slope of the Kall gorge near Mestrenger Mühle by a German resident. AGRC personnel investigated and recovered the remains, ultimately designating them X-5770. Based on the circumstances of the recovery, they believed this individual had died between November and December 1944, but were not able to scientifically identify the remains. X-5770 was interred in 1949 in what would be named the Ardennes American Cemetery.

Based on research by a DPAA historian in 2021, it was determined that X-5770 could possibly belong to Reeves. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery were disinterred in August 2022 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

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

Reeves’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Margraten Cemetery. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Pfc Reeves was given his final resting place at Moulton Memory Garden, Alabama on 30 April 2024.