Memorial

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Pvt Pearl F. Barrow enlisted at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on 22 January 1944.

On 16 January 2020 the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Pvt Barrow was accounted for on 9 January 2020.

His unit was engaged in battle with German forces near Hürtgen, Germany, when he was reported as killed in action on 20 November 1944. Because of the fighting, 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 Barrow’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in December 1951.

In 2017, while studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains found in 1948 possibly belonged to Barrow. A business card with “Guaranteed Roofing Co., 832 Indiana” had been found with the remains. While Barrow was not from Indiana, the address listed for his wife in his Report of Death was 832 Indiana, Wichita, Kansas. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in 1950, were disinterred in August 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification.

To identify Barrow’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

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

Barrow will be buried in his hometown. The date has yet to be determined (April 2022).

He is remembered at White Chapel Memorial Gardens, Wichita, Sedgewick County, Kansas.