https://www.fold3.com/memorial/529910031/elmo-f-hartwick/stories

T/4 ELMO F HARTWICK

Unit 149 ENGINEERS COMBAT BATTALION

Country of Loss English Channel

Home of Record KS

WORLD WAR II

UNITED STATES ARMY

Accounted For 08/21/2023

On August 21, 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Technician Fourth Grade Elmo F. Hartwick, missing from World War II.

T/4 Hartwick entered the U.S. Army from Kansas and served with the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion. On June 6, 1944, he was aboard the infantry landing craft USS LCI(L)-92, manned by the U.S. Coast Guard, which carried approximately 25 crew members and 200 soldiers for the D-Day landings at Normandy, France. While off the coast of Omaha Beach, the landing craft was hit by enemy shells and mortar fire before it struck a mine that ignited fuel in its forward troop compartment. The men positioned inside the compartment were killed instantly by the intense fire that spread throughout the ship. The intensity of the flames prevented the recovery of the remains of twenty-four men from the troop compartment. In June 1944, members of the 500th Medical Collecting Company examined the ship and reportedly observed remains in the hold where Technician Fourth Grade Hartwick was last seen. Graves registration personnel removed this small amount of remains and buried them in United States Military Cemetery St. Laurent-sur-Mer #1. Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) conducted post-war identification and recovery efforts across Europe. The AGRC analyzed the remains found in LCI-92, separating them into four potentially intermingled Unknowns, which were interred in Normandy American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) site in Normandy, France. In 2021 the Department of Defense and the ABMC disinterred the remains and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these unknown remains and T/4 Hartwick.

Technician Fourth Grade Hartwick is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.

Service Members Associated with T/4 ELMO HARTWICK's Loss BEYER; LAWRENCE A Pvt Unaccounted For

BORYSIEWICZ; JOSEPH F Pfc Unaccounted For

COLLINS; HIRAM H 1st Sgt Unaccounted For

DILL; OTIS W Pvt Unaccounted For

GERTH; THEODORE O Sgt Unaccounted For

GORE; REX A Pvt Unaccounted For

GREEN; JACK W Pvt Unaccounted For

HARRINGTON; JAMES L Pfc Unaccounted For

HARTMAN; NICHOLAS Pfc Unaccounted For

HARTWICK; ELMO F T/4 Accounted For

HERRICK; JOHN O Sgt Unaccounted For

KRIEGER; ORIE Pvt Unaccounted For

MORELAND; JAY B Sgt Unaccounted For

MORELAND; WILLIAM W S Sgt Unaccounted For

PACHECO; MANUEL Pfc Unaccounted For

PITTS; ROBERT Pfc Unaccounted For

RAINES; ALEX H Pvt Unaccounted For

SHOTTON; ROBERT N Pfc Unaccounted For

SMITH; WILLIAM A Pvt Unaccounted For

SUTHERLAND; WARNER C Pvt Unaccounted For

TULLIS; HAROLD F Pvt Unaccounted For

VINES; CARL E Pvt Unaccounted For

WAITE; RICHARD D Pvt Unaccounted For

WOLFE; JULIUS G Cpl Unaccounted For