Remains of US solider killed in WWII returned to Pennsylvania after 80 years

The remains of a US soldier killed during the second world war were returned to his Pennsylvania hometown more than 80 years after he died after DNA analysis identified him. John A Walko, a US army Pfc who died on 20 October 1944 during the Battle of Aachen in Germany, was escorted from the Pittsburgh airport to Commodore, Pennsylvania by a veteran’s motorcycle group earlier this month, according to Cleveland.com . Walko’s remains were not accounted for after the war, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said. The American Graves Registration Command at the United States Military Cemetery Henri-Chapelle, Netherlands, took into custody a set of unknown remains in 1944. These remains were ultimately deemed “X-99 Henri-Chapelle”. While it was known they belonged to someone killed by mortar fire in Aachen on 20 October 1944, the condition of these remains prevented a definitive identification. Some three years ago, the US defense department and American Battle Monuments Commission exhumed X-99 Henri-Chepelle and transferred the remains to a DPAA laboratory. DPAA scientists used “anthropological analysis as well as material evidence”, and various DNA analyses, to positively identify X-99 Henri-Chapelle as Walko. Sally Gaydosh, 96, told Cleveland.com that she had waited nearly eight decades for news of her brother--sometimes even wondering whether he might just show up. “And we waited and we (thought), ‘Oh, we’re sure. …