Kansas soldier killed in action in D-Day landings returns home

EMPORIA (KSNT) - The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says a Kansas man who died in WWII will be coming home later this year.

The DPAA announced in a press release on Monday, March 25 the remains of Sergeant John O. Herrick will be returned to his hometown of Emporia for a burial ceremony on Nov. 11, 2024. Herrick was killed in action at the age of 19 on June 6, 1944 during the D-Day landings in Normandy, France.

Herrick was assigned to Company B of the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion in the European Theater. He was on board Landing Craft Infantry (Large) 92 alongside around 200 other servicemembers on the way to Omaha Beach when the craft hit an underwater mine. Flames engulfed the landing craft, which was also hit by artillery fire, which instantly killed everyone on board.

The DPAA says Herrick's remains were not accounted for by the end of WWII. The 500th Medical Collecting Company later examined the wreckage of the landing craft Herrick was on, collecting the remains and burying them in a U.S. cemetery at St. Laurent-sur-Mer in France.

In 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) examined the remains recovered from the landing craft, separating them into four groups. However, the AGRC was unable to identify the 'unknowns' at the time, burying them in Normandy American Cemetery.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense exhumed the remains of four unknowns and placed them in a DPAA lab for analysis. There, Herrick's remains were successfully identified using mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis.

In February this year, the DPAA announced it had also recovered the remains of Elmo F. Hartwick, 38, of Onaga, Kansas. He was on board the same landing craft as Herrick when he too was killed in action. His remains are set to be buried in his hometown at a later date.

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