Memorial

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2nd Lt Robert C. Gamache:
"We were flying with the second wave at a heading of about 300 degrees and were about five miles west of the coast of Albania when we noticed plane number 411, which was to our left and behind out at about seven thirty make a shallow left turn, descending rapidly, and head back for the Albania coast. When we last saw him our altitude was about thirteen thousand feet and he was about four thousand feet below us. I didn’t notice anything wrong with number 411 and don’t believe they throw anything overboard. The plane seemed to be under control."

The plane crashlanded on a beach near Ulcinj, Montenegro on 24 January 1944.

The entire crew was taken prisoner.

He was shot on 21 May 1944 by a German guard inside the compound at Stalag Luft VI on his way to the latrine in the early morning before the prisoners’ nightly lockdown had been lifted and died on 28 May 1944.

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 Nies’ remains couldn’t be identified. The AGRC provided additional information on Nies 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/MIA's requested the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius look into Nies’ 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 sight 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 Nies’ remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material and circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on 16 August 2022 that S/Sgt Walter Nies was accounted for on 2 August 2022.

Nies will be buried on date yet to be determined, in Eureka, South Dakota.

Further information will follow (information added August 2022).