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Pfc Richard P. Summers attended George Washington High School.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on 4 December 2025 that Pfc Richard P. Summers was accounted for on 10 September 2025.

In early 1945, Summers was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. On 6 January 1945, Summers was reportedly killed in action while his unit was on patrol near Wildenguth, France. The Germans never reported Summers as a prisoner of war, and his remains were not immediately recovered.

Between July 1947 and July 1950, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the unit responsible for the search and recovery of fallen American personnel in the European Theater, searched the area around Wildenguth and recovered four Unknowns in the vicinity that were never identified. One set of Unknowns, designated X-5571 Neuville, was recovered from the Wildenguth Forest and evacuated to U.S. Military Cemetery (USMC) Neuville-en-Condroz (Neuville), Belgium.

In August 2022, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission exhumed Unknown X-5571 Neuville from the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium and transferred them to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis.

To identify Summers’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis and nuclear single nucleotide polymorphism testing.

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

Summers will be buried on a date yet to be determined (information added February 2026).