Memorial

More information

Cpl Charles H. Bowen enlisted at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on 10 March 1942.

On 9 September 1944, just north of Maizieres-les-Metz, a tank of B Company was hit by a German anti-tank gun and burned. Two crew members escaped. Three did not. When company commander Capt. Emerson Wolfe examined the tank after it stopped burning, he could not detect any remains of the three men. So, all three were believed to have been cremated in the fire.
However, on 25 March 1946 - a year and a half later - a US Graves Registration team found the tank which they saw had serial number USA 3883676-S and was marked 7-40-B-18 and examined it for remains. Their trained eyes identified some charred bone fragments that were later confirmed to be from the same person, designated Unknown X-6010 (St Avold).

There was no way at that time to associate the tank with the tank destroyed on 9 September 1944, although the tank was clearly marked as a B/40 tank. But now we have a significant collection of documents. Combining the contemporary records of the 40th Tank Battalion, 48th Armored Infantry Battalion (to which B/40 was attached on that date) and Combat Command A (to which both battalions were attached) with the Individual Deceased Personnel File of one of the three men (Charles Bowen) killed in the tank and the file of St Avold X-6010, it is now clear that the only B/40 tank lost at that location was the one in which the three men were killed. Thus the bone fragments must be from one of the three men killed on 9 September 1944 and originally believed to have been entirely consumed in the fire. The web page, mentioned below, presents the information from all records. It applies what is known about St Avold Unknown X-6010 and narrows his identity to two of the three men killed.

Cpl Charles H. Bowne is remembered at Frank Hardin Family Cemetery in Fleetwood, Ashe County, North Carolina with a memorial marker.