Remains of Wichita Falls soldier killed in WWII identified after nearly 80 years
The remains of a 19-year-old Wichita Falls soldier killed in World War II have been identified after nearly 80 years, according to an annoucement Thursday from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
A brave machine gunner and a musician who entertained at camp shows, Pfc. Clinton E. Smith Jr. will be laid to rest Nov. 27 in San Antonio.
Newspaper clippings from long ago shed light on the young man who joined the Army in Corpus Christi and gave his life for his country.
Smith put aside his .30-caliber machine gun for an interlude playing a beat-up piano on the Anzio Beachhead in Italy. He thought his days tickling the ivories were over when he joined the 45th Infantry Division there March 9, 1944.
"Just shows you how wrong a guy can be," Smith said in a clipping. "I remember playing 'Lili Marlene' on the beachhead on a battered old piano that looked as though it had been through the last war, with German artillery shells supplying the base."
Smith was born in Wichita Falls, and he was a music major at Baylor University before joining the Army, according to a May 13, 1945 clipping from the Wichita Daily Times. He had served in three major campaigns with the 45th at that time and had recently been awarded the Combat Infantryman's Badge.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency officials said Smith was accounted for Sept. 28, 2022, but the young man's family just recently received a full briefing on his identification.
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He was assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division in January 1945.
Smith's unit engaged with German forces during the Battle of Reipertswiller in France and was surrounded, along with four other companies. He was killed in an artillery strike Jan. 14 while manning a machine gun to support his advancing company's attempt to regain lost ground.
His body could not be recovered because of the fighting.
The Germans controlled the area where he fell, and his fellow soldiers were not able to remove his remains, according to his DPAA personnel profile.
Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command, which searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, searched the area around Reipertswiller.
The organization found 37 unidentified sets of American remains. None of them could be identified as Smith. He was declared nonrecoverable March 29, 1951.
DPAA historians have been conducting on-going research into soldiers missing from combat around Reipertswiller. They discovered that remains designated X-6985 St. Avold and buried at Lorraine American Cemetery could be associated with Smith.
The cemetery is an American Battle Monuments Commission site in St. Avold, France. X-6985 was disinterred in August 2021 and transferred for analysis to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
To identify Smith’s remains, DPAA scientists tapped into dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. In addition, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis.
A rosette will be placed next to Smith's name on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Dinozé, France, to indicate he has been accounted for. The names of others still missing from WWII are also recorded there.
Smith moved to Corpus Christ with his family in the 1930s, according to Corpus Christi Caller-Times articles from the 1945. Besides Baylor, he attended Wynn Seale Junior School in Corpus Christi and the Texas Military School in San Antonio.
His parents were notified in early February 1945 their son was missing in action on the French Front. The last letter they received from him was dated Jan. 5, days before he was killed.
In July 1945, the War Department sent Smith's parents an official message confirming his death.
For more information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving their country, visit www.dpaa.mil, www.facebook.com/dodpaa or https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.
Trish Choate, enterprise watchdog reporter for the Times Record News, covers education, courts, breaking news and more. Contact Trish with news tips at tchoate@gannett.com. Read her recent workhere. Her X handle is @Trishapedia.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Remains of Wichita Falls solider killed in World War II identified
