Military officials say a Kansas man who died in Germany during World War II has been identified and his remains are being returned to his home state for burial
Mar 18, 2023 2:52pm ET
• 2 minutes reading time
HILL CITY, Kan. – The remains of a Kansas man who died in Germany during World War II have been identified and will be returned to his home state for burial later this year.
The body of US Army Sgt. Gregory V. Knoll 22, of Hill City. was identified in January, but his family only recently received a full briefing, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said on Friday.
Knoll was assigned to Company M, 3rd Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. In November 1944 his battalion was overrun by German forces as they attempted to capture Schmidt, Germany in the Hürtgen Forest.
Survivors of the attack retreated to Kommerscheidt, where Knoll was killed in action on November 7, 1944.
The American Graves Registration Command conducted several surveys in the Hurtgen area between 1946 and 1950, but were unable to locate or identify Knoll’s remains.
A DPAA historian later determined that a set of unidentified remains recovered at Kommerschedt in April 1946 may have belonged to Knoll. The remains were buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium in 1949.
They were exhumed in July 2021 and sent to the DPAA lab at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where scientists used DNA and other analysis to identify Knoll’s remains
Knoll will be buried in Garden City on July 7.
