WASHINGTON — U.S. defense officials announced a Grand Rapids World War II soldier has been accounted for.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says U.S. Army Pfc. Donald Hofman was 19 years old when he was killed in France in 1945.
We’re told Hofman was part of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, which was assigned to help five others companies secure land close to Reipertswiller in January 1945 when German soldiers ambushed them.
The DPAA explains all companies were instructed to break out, saying only two soldiers manage to escape German forces. All others were captured or killed, according to defense officials.
Hofman was killed in the attempt but the fighting precluded efforts to recover his body, the DPAA says. He was deemed non-recoverable in 1951.
Historians researching missing soldiers from the Reipertswiller area determined remains interred at Ardennes American Cemetery in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium, may have belonged to Hofman, which the DPAA says was identified through dental and DNA analysis.
Hofman will be laid to rest in Byron Center at a later date, national defense officials say.
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