Memorial

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Pvt Myron E. Williams graduated from Dixon High School in 1933 and the University of Illinois in 1936 where he studied Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences. He was employed at Kwality Baking Company in Champaign.

He enlisted on 17 September 1943 and was sent to England in January 1944.

His company entered a wooded area that had been heavily mined and booby-trapped, and then found itself under heavy mortar and artillery fire. When the company witdrew from the miniefield, Pvt Williams was missing. Battle conditions made it impossible to search for Pvt Willams at the time and he was never reported to be a prisoner of war. Attempts to locate his remains following the ware were unsucessful.

He was reported missing in action on 16 November 1944 and officialy declared dead one day and one year later.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on 3 August 2022 that Pvt Myron E. Williams was accounted for on 13 July 2022.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command 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 Williams’ remains. He was declared non-recoverable in December 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-5432 Neuville, recovered Germeter and Hürtgen possibly belonged to Williams. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in 194, were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification. While analyzing X-5432, DPAA scientists also examined X-5405 Neuville, which had been found only 20 yards from X-5432 in 1947, and discovered comingling between the two.

To identify Williams’ 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 (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.

His 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.

Pvt Williams was buried on 2 June 2023 at Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas.