The remains of a World War II soldier listed by the federal government as from Emporia will be coming home later this year.
The Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency says Army Sgt. John O Herrick was killed during World War II and was accounted for this past August.
Herrick was assigned to Company B, 149th Engineer Combat Battalion in the European Theater and was killed during the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Herrick was among around 200 soldiers aboard Landing Craft Infantry 92 when it hit an underwater mine and was struck by enemy artillery shells. The boat burst into flames and also had an explosion that caught the ship’s fuel on fire, killing everybody in the troop compartment instantly.
While listed as being from Emporia, Herrick attended high school in Bushong and was one of four soldiers from the town killed during the Omaha Beach invasion.
Herrick’s remains were not positively identified for decades.
Shortly after the invasion, members of the 500th Medical Collecting Company looked through LCI-92 and noted remains of servicemen where Herrick and the other soldiers were last seen. American Graves Registration Command then removed small amounts of remains and buried them in the US Military Cemetery St. Laurent-sur-Mer. In 1946, AGRC did further work on LCI-92 but were unable to identify several sets of remains.
Between June and August 2021, the Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission dug up commingled remains of four unknown soldiers and transferred them to the DPAA’s laboratory for analysis, including anthropological, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome analysis.
Herrick will be buried in Emporia, the founding city of Veterans Day, on the holiday.
The confirmation of Herrick’s remains follows a similar announcement for Marine Private Glenn White, an Emporia native, in 2021.
