Hero's Welcome for World War II Soldier

It was a hero’s welcome for Army Sgt. Bernard J. Sweeney, Jr., whose remains were returned to U.S. soil after he went missing in action during a World War II battle in Germany 79 years ago.

Fire departments from across Suffolk County flew huge American flags along the route to the Calverton National Cemetery, which was closed to traffic as a horse-drawn caisson carried Sweeney’s coffin draped with the Stars and Stripes of the country he gave his life defending.

Under the command of Gen. Omar Bradley in December 1944, Sweeney, 22 years old, was assigned to Company I, 330th Infantry Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division. His unit was engaged in battle with enemy forces near Strass, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest, when he was reported missing in action. The body of the Waterbury, Connecticut native was not found.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating the Hürtgen area between 1946 and 1950, but was unable to find Sweeney’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in 1951.

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Fast forward 70 years for an incredible announcement by the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), a military office tasked with finding soldiers who never made it home. While studying unresolved American losses in the region, a DPAA historian determined that a set of remains designated X-2752 Neuville, recovered from a minefield north of Kleinhau, Germany in 1946, might belong to Sweeney. The remains, which had been buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery in 1950, were disinterred in 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.

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To match them to the infantryman, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA analysis to identify the hero who made the ultimate sacrifice so many years ago.

Sweeney’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery, a Battle Monuments Commission site in Margarten, along with the others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

The longest battle in German territory during World War II at three months, the Hürtgen Forest campaign cost the First Army an estimated 55,000 fighters killed or wounded, with German losses at 28,000. The U.S. attack was meant to disrupt enemy supply lines, which were being used in preparation for the Battle of the Bulge.

“The Sergeant had no immediate family or next of kin,” noted county Executive Steve Bellone, who attended the Calverton ceremony. “Today, all of the free world is his next of kin.”

“It is being asked that the route from Alexander-Rothwell Funeral Home to Calverton National Cemetery be safely lined with as many persons and equipment as possible,” said South Country Ambulance Chief Gregory Miglino, Jr. in a letter requesting local departments to turnout in honor of the long-ago soldier. The community responded in a most patriotic way as hundreds witnessed the procession with hands in heartfelt salute.

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The Calverton National Cemetery was established in 1978 on 1,045 acres secured from the Grumman Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant. It is the largest facility of its kind, and the busiest with over 212,000 interments. Other notables resting with Sgt. Sweeney are Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL who gave his life in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, and Air Force Col. Francis S. Gabreski, the top American fighter ace in Europe during World War II and a jet fighter ace in Korea.