Memorial

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Thomas Moss worked on a farm.

He enlisted in Roanoke, Virginia on 21 April 1941.

His battalion had captured the town of Kommerscheidt, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. A series of heavy German counterattacks eventually forced his battalion to withdraw. Moss was reported killed in action on 7 November 1944, while fighting enemy forces at Kommerscheidt. His remains could not be recovered after the attack.
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 Moss’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in November 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one of three sets of unidentified remains, designated X-6566, X-6567 and X-6568, recovered from a mass grave at Kommerscheidt in April 1946, possibly belonged to Moss. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in 1949, were disinterred in August 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

To identify Moss’s remains, scientists from DPAA used 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.

Moss’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery. A rosette was placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

T/Sgt Moss was given his final resting place at Salisbury National Cemetery, North Carolina on 22 November 2024.