CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Editor's Note: The attached video originally aired Oct. 6.
More than 75 years after he was reported missing in action and later killed, a South Carolina World War II veteran is coming home to be laid to rest.
Army Staff Sgt. William R. Linder was assigned to Company E, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. The 30-year-old was reported missing in action on Nov. 16, 1945. German forces never listed Linder as a prisoner of war when he was presumably killed on Nov. 17.
After the end of World War II in Europe, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel. Linder was part of the Hürtgen Forest offensive near Hürtgen, Germany, when he disappeared. Despite several investigations between 1946 and 1950, officials were unable to recover or identify Linder's remains and he was declared non-recoverable in 1951.
A historian with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency determined that remains found in the area possibly belonged to Linder. The remains were found by residents after a fire swept through the area in 1947. The remains were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to a lab at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for forensic examination and identification.
Scientists were able to use dental records and anthropological analysis to positively identify Linder.
Linder's remains are now in the process of being returned to South Carolina. He will be buried in Anderson, South Carolina, on Oct. 29.
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