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Pvt James P. Benfield was taken prisoner after being wounded by enemy action while his company was attacking in the vicinity of St. Germain d’Elle, France on 12 June 1944.
At first he was held prisoner of war in Stalag XII-A and from there he was transferred to Stalag IV-B.
The IDPF of Pvt Benfield contains a statement of Louis C. Schmidt, Man of Confidence for the American Prisoners of War of 24 September 1944 that describes what happened: The deceased, James Benfield, whilst working at the Reichsbahn, hurt himself internally while lifting an iron rail on the morning of 20 September 1944. The deceased said nothing about his injury to anyone. He said, and I quote, "I thought it would be better the next day." Unquote.
The following morning the deceased went out to work as usual. At midday they brought him back to the barrack. I was not there at the time as I was in town checking up the rations. When I came back, which was at approximately 5 p.m., I went to see him. He was in agony and crying out for someone to help him. I immediately got the sergeant and told him to acquire a doctor immediately. He immediately went for a doctor but the guard could not at first find one. The sergeant immediately sent out another guard. This, in the course of matters, took approximately three hours. The guard came back with a civilian woman doctor and a British First Aid man. She immediately looked the deceased over and could find no sign of anything serious the matter. She left orders to keep him covered, and to keep him in bed until Friday morning until Sick Parade. She left a few aspirines and a few sleeping tablets. Everything went along fairly well except that the deceased kept moaning quite a bit. Finally on Friday morning at approximately 6:30 a.m. I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for the men to fall out for work, when I looked up, and there stood the deceased. I immediately stood up and caught him as he was about to collapse. I carried him back to bed and asked him why he had done such a foolish thing. He said that he was thirsty and that he wanted water. Finally he was taken down to the Infirmary on a push cart. When he reached the Infirmary, the doctor in charge immediately sent for an ambulance. He gave de deceased a few pills and he went to sleep. It was during the course of this sleeping that the deceased passed away. The doctor said that he died from internal bleeding, which caused his breathing to stop."
He was initially buried at the Cemetery for Prisoners of War in Falkenberg-Elster on 26 September 1944.
In November 1946, the remains of four unidentified American Servicemen were disinterred at this cemetery and marked as X-6411 to X-6414. These remains were evacuated to Ardennes Cemetery, where it was believed that Unknown X-6411 was to be Pvt Benfield. However the tooth chart of this Unknown didn't compare with the dental data of Pvt Benfield. For this reason the Unknown was declared unidentifiable. the other three Unknowns could be identified.

Unknown X-6411 was first buried in a temporary grave at Ardennes. After being disinterred and after the cemetery was given a permanent status, he was given his final resting place on 20 April 1950.