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Lawrence Worthen enlisted on 12 February 1943 in Los Angeles, California.

He was officially declared dead one day and one year after he was reported missing in action.

On 17 September 1944, after his unit was attacked by enemy forces near Wettlingen, Germany, his remains could not be recovered after the attack.

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC,) U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps was the unit tasked with investigation and recovery of missing American personnel. The AGRC collected thousands of unknown remains from across northern Europe. A mass grave of several 112th Infantry Soldiers had been found near Wettlingen, and most were identified through identification tags or personal effects. However two sets, processed through the American cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg, designated X-70 Hamm and X-71 Hamm, were declared unidentifiable, and subsequently buried in the Luxembourg American Cemetery as Unknowns.

In 2017, while studying American losses and unidentified remains recovered from combat around Wettlingen, Germany, a DPAA historian reviewed documents of X-71 Hamm, and determined that there were five unresolved American casualties who were last known to have been lost in combat near Wettlingen, including Worthen.

In April 2019, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission disinterred X-71 Hamm and accessioned the remains to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

To identify Worthen’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental, anthropological analysis and chest radiograph comparison analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence.

Pfc Worthen has been given his final resting place on 25 October 2019 in Boise, Idaho.