WASHINGTON — A Minnesota man is having his remains returned to the continental U.S. for burial 80 years after he was killed during World War II.
Army First Lieutenant Herman J. Sundstad was 26 years old in the summer of 1944. His unit, Task Force Galahad, was engaged with Japanese forces in Burma, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said.
"The exact circumstances of his death were not recorded, and his remains were not accounted for during or after the war," DPAA said in a press release published Friday.
Sundstad was from Perley, Minnesota, a town in Norman County that today has a population of about 100.
The American Graves Registration Service recovered a set of unknown remains after his death in 1944. DPAA said those remains were examined but could not be specifically identified. They were taken to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, where they remained for nearly eight decades.
Three years ago, Sundstad's remains were disinterred, and DPAA said scientists used dental, anthropological, and mitochondrial DNA analysis to find who he was.
Now, funeral plans are made for Nov. 11. At the Tablets of the Missing in the Philippines, a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
