Remains of missing Illinois soldier identified from World War II

MOUNT OLIVE, Ill. - A U.S. Army sergeant from Illinois who was reported missing during World War II was accounted for earlier this year.

U.S. Army Sergeant John W. Radanovich, 23, of Mount Olive, Illinois, was assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division in November 1944. 

His rifle platoon was in battle with German forces near Hürtgen Forest, Germany when he went missing on Dec. 1, 1944.

Many soldiers in Company G were killed, but Radanovich wasn't reported as a prisoner of war by the Germans, and his remains weren't immediately found.

In December 1945, the War Department presumed him dead.

U.S. Army Sergeant John W. Radanovich | Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

After the war, the American Graves Registration Command was in charge of finding and bringing back missing American people in Europe. They searched the Hürtgen area multiple times between 1946 and 1950, but they couldn't identify any of the remains they found as Radanovich.

A historian was studying American losses in the Hürtgen Forest and found unidentified remains in 1946 that could be linked to Radanovich. 

The remains, buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in Neuville-en-Condroz, Belgium, were taken out for analysis in June 2021.

Scientists used anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence to identify Radanovich’s remains. 

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His name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery and a rosette will be placed next to his name to show he has been accounted for.

Radanovich will be buried in his hometown of Mount Olive.