Memorial

More information

Pvt Emmet W. Schwartz graduated from New Philadelphia High School in 1939 and was employed by the Hercules Motors Co.

He enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana on 3 May 1944 and was sent overseas in October 1944.

He was reported killed in action by artillery fire on 27 December 1944. 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 Schwartz’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-7173 St. Avold, originally recovered from a foxhole near Obermaubach by the AGRC in 1946, possibly belonged to Schwartz. The remains, which had been buried in Rhône American Cemetery in Draguignan, France, were disinterred in June 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.

To identify Schwartz’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 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Schwartz’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Schwartz is given his final resting place on 18 November 2021 at the Evergreen Burial Park in New Philadelphia, Ohio.