Memorial

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T/Sgt William F. Teaff attended Bergholz High School and worked in a machine shop.

He enlisted in Akron, Ohio on 19 Ocotber 1942.

German fighters knocked out engine 3 & 4. There was a huge steam of gasoline coming off the right wing and the pilot, Lt Brannan, issued the bail out signal fearing an explosion. A few moments later, the airplane exploded. It crashed in Hausstette on 6 March 1944.

Along with T/Sgt Teaff, seven crew members were taken prisoner and twe were killed.

T/Sgt Teaff bailed out successfully, was taken prisoner and was sent to Stalag Luft VI in Heydekrug (now Siluté, Lithuania).

He died on 10 July 1944 in the nearby village of Macikai, Lithuania, where he was receiving medical treatment for diptheria. The Germans buried him with full military honors in Grave 4 of the Camp Cemetery of Heydrekrug. T/Sgt Teaff's grave is believed to have been lost in the later stages of the war and as of 1944 has not been found.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, was unable to recover the three Americans’ remains because Stalag Luft 6, now inside Lithuania because of post-war border shifting, was deep inside the Soviet occupation zone. In 1948, the AGRC provided a list of Americans whose remains were believed to be in Soviet territory to the Soviet government, but Teaff’s remains couldn’t be identified. The AGRC provided additional information on Teaff to the Soviets in 1950, but by September 1951, he could still not be found. He was declared non-recoverable on March 25, 1954.

After Lithuania became independent in 1992, the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs requested the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius look into Teaff’s case. They discovered the Soviet Union destroyed Stalag Luft 6 in 1955 and reverted the area to farmland. In 2006, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), a DPAA predecessor, and the Joint Commission Support Directorate investigated the site and recommended excavation. However, significant issues prevented them from sending a recovery team. Around this time, the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), also a DPAA predecessor, found several new sources of information pertaining to the case at the National Archives.

DPAA partnered with Ohio Valley Archeology, Inc. (OVAI) in 2019, and an OVAI team investigated the site that September, finding possible gravesites for the three missing Americans. A Lithuanian archeological group called Kulturos Vertybiu Globa (Guardianship of Cultural Values) was also active in the area and was planning an excavation of Polish and Lithuanian remains near Stalag Luft 6, so DPAA partnered with them to excavate the possible gravesites, which they did in August 2021. The remains found at the site were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for analysis.

To identify Teaff’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence.

Teaff’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.

The date and location for Teaff’s funeral have yet to be determined (information added August 2022).