Page 19 - O Mahony Society Newsletter NOV 2025_Neat

Jeremiah, We Hardly Knew Ye

by Linda McConnell Baker

Some months ago, O Mahony Society Cisteoir Dermot O’Mahoney emailed me cell phone images of a newspaper article he read.
Spot-on, as always, Dermot wondered if the story of this Chicago native, World War II United States Army Private, missing in action
in France since January of 1945, but whose remains were now identified as an O Mahony, would be of interest to our membership.
This story weaves history, traditional genealogy, and the science of genetic genealogy beautifully.

It was easy enough to transcribe the article Dermot sent on Jeremiah Mahoney, but that inevitably sent me down the proverbial
rabbit hole. The internet is an amazing tool, and I was unable to find even more information held in the public domain.

After last year’s Christmas-tide holidays, I googled the indirect descendant of Jeremiah noted in the New York Times article.
The results of that were far from helpful. I then put out a feeler to both a local Chicago genealogical group and a historical
society, inquiring about the family noted in said article. Answers from both were brief: the genealogical group professed no such
information, and the historical society stated that while they were aware of the recent identification of Jeremiah Mahoney, they had
neither information on, nor permission from, the family to share any contacts.
What follows are the transcriptions/copies of source information found about Private Mahoney, a couple of photographs, his
contemporaneous newspaper obituary, and the search to identify his remains. May Jeremiah rest in peace, and a special perpetual
light shine on this young man who sacrificed all.

FROM ABC NEWS: DNA technology solves case of Illinois World War II soldier missing since 1944
by KHQA Staff
Thu, October 24th 2024 at 1:47 PM

Illinois (KHQA) — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
(DPAA) announced today, Thursday, October 24th, that U.S.
Army Pvt. Jeremiah P. Mahoney, 19, of Chicago, Illinois, killed
during World War II, was accounted for May 6, 2024.
During World War II, Mahoney was assigned to Anti-Tank
Company, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division
in the European Theater during World War II. Shortly before
midnight on New Year’s Eve 1944, German forces launched a
major offensive, known as Operation NORDWIND, in the Vosges
DNA technology solves case of Illinois World War II soldier missing since 1944 Mountains in Alsace-Lorraine, France.
(Chicago Tribune Clipping, WWII Army Photo)
The German attack surged through Allied defenses along the
Franco-German border, and the ensuing battle enveloped two U.S. Corps along a 40-mile-wide front. In the following few weeks, Anti-Tank
Company resupplied and reinforced the 157th Infantry Regiment near the village of Reipertswiller.
At some point on January 17, Mahoney was killed, but due to the intensity of the fighting his unit could not recover his body as it was forced to
withdraw from the area. With no record of German forces capturing Mahoney, and no remains recovered, the War Department issued a “Finding
of Death” in January 1946.

Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American
personnel in the European Theater, began looking for missing American personnel in the Reipertswiller area.
In August 1947, graves registration personnel recovered a set of remains, which they designated X-6379 Neuville (X-6379), from the
Reipertswiller Forest. Analysts assessed the remains, along with clothing and equipment recovered with the body, but they were unable to
identify X-6379. In 1949, the AGRC interred the Unknown in U.S. Military Cemetery (USMC) Neuville, Neupré, Belgium (today, Ardennes
American Cemetery).
DPAA historians have been conducting in-depth research into Soldiers missing from combat around Wildenguth and Reipertswiller, and believe
that Unknown X-6379 could be associated with Mahoney.
Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission workers exhumed X-6379 in August 2022 and transferred the remains
to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis. 19