Memorial

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Pfc Alcario V. Flores worked on a farm before he enlisted in Phoenix, Arizona, on 1 December 1942.

G Company was assigned to a sector north of Repiertswiller, known as Hoch Ebersberg when on 21 January 1945, at some point, Pfc Flores was killed. Due to the intensity of the fighting his body was unable to be recovered. With no record of German forces capturing Flores, and no remains recovered, the War Department issued a “Report of Death” in January 1946.

He was officially declared death one year and one day after he was reported missing in action.

Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, began looking for missing American personnel in the Reipertswiller and Wildenguth areas of France. At the time, they were able to recover numerous sets of remains, but none found belonged to Flores. Because the remains could not be identified, they were interred in 1949 at the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France, known today as Lorraine American Cemetery.

DPAA historians have been conducting in-depth research into soldiers missing from combat around Wildenguth and Reipertswiller, and in 2021 an anonymous metal detectorist discovered human remains while illegally collecting relics from a foxhole on Hoch Ebersberg. The detectorist also discovered material evidence linking the remains to U.S. Army troops, to include clothing and 30-calibre casings. In December 2021, a DPAA Detachment Europe team recovered the remains and items from the southern slope of Hoch Ebersberg and transferred them to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis.

To identify Flores’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological, and other circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Pfc Flores’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Pfc Flores was given his final resting place in Tempe, Arizona, on 3 August 2024.