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‘He is found, and he has come home'
Family honors World War II soldier missing in action since 1945
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by JESSE YEATMAN
Above, Staff Sgt. Michael Edwards plays taps at a ceremony Saturday for John Thomas Abell, who went missing in action in 1945. The family held a ceremony at Charles Memorial Gardens for Abell.
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Family members of U.S. Army Private First Class John Thomas Abell held a memorial service Saturday, 64 years after he went missing in action during World War II.
Abell, born in Leonardtown on Sept. 2, 1923, enrolled in the Army at age 19 and was determined missing in action about two years later.
"As of today he is no longer missing in action. He is found, and he has come home," the Rev. John Mattingly said during the service at Charles Memorial Gardens in Leonardtown. He said that everyone needs to physically mark a place to remember people who were once part of their lives.
A simple stone with a cross on top now rests at the cemetery, inscribed with John Abell's name, birth date and the date he was reported missing in action, along with the words "In memory of," which is required for graves that do not contain remains.
"Today is truly a homecoming," Mattingly said. "John's life was extremely honorable." He signed up for military service and offered up his life at a young age, as so many others did during that war, the pastor said.
John Abell enlisted in the Army in Baltimore on March 12, 1943, not long after graduating from Margaret Brent High School.
He was reported missing in action after serving about two years, leaving his family with not much more than the memory of a young man who signed up, like many of the era, to defend his country.
David Abell began looking into a way to memorialize his uncle after he saw his name on the World War II monument placed in Leonardtown in 2001.
"My uncle is the first one that's listed," he said. From that monument he was able to learn his uncle's serial number.
He had heard his family speak about John Abell some over the years, but no one knew much about his circumstances in the fight against Germany, nor had any gravesite ever been established. The only picture he has of the uncle is one of him in an Army helmet holding a rifle; a snapshot David Abell's father carried in his wallet until his death several years ago.
"The family never spoke of MIA," David Abell said.
David Abell contacted the American Battles Monument Commission, which oversees numerous memorials and cemeteries around the world for U.S. servicemen. John Abell's name appears at the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium, located seven miles from the German border, as one of 450 missing in action World War II servicemen.
David Abell said he still does not know how his uncle came to be missing in action. Through online research he has discovered some clues; he was a private first class in Company D of the 373rd engineer general service regiment. The date he was officially listed as missing was June 10, 1945.
That day is about a month after the war in Europe ended. David Abell is unsure how that date was even decided, and would like to find out more about how and where his uncle went missing. "I'm going to continue to find out about this Company D and the 373rd division," he said. He learned from Army records that investigations of the missing were conducted in 1946, but no results were found related to John Abell.
During a ceremony Saturday that drew a few dozen family members and friends of family, two servicemen folded and presented an American flag to the John Abell's surviving younger brother, C. Roger Bussler.
"That's what we're here for, to help bring closure," Staff Sgt. Michael Edwards said Saturday after playing taps at the ceremony. He said in his 11 years of performing at graveside services, he had never done one for someone missing in action from such a long time ago.
Tommy Howe was one of four color guards from the American Legion post in Avenue to participate in the service. He said it was a pleasure to participate in the service with David Abell, also a member of the legion. "I think it's fantastic" to honor a veteran missing in action, even so many decades later, said Howe, a Vietnam veteran.
David Abell said he hopes his story of searching for information and closure to his uncle's life and death could influence others.
Through the Department of Veterans' Affairs, he was able to have the tombstone made.
Spurred on by a short piece in National Geographic, David Abell learned about the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, based in Hawaii that works to link remains found at battle sites with DNA evidence of relatives.
There were nearly 75,000 U.S. servicemen still listed as missing in action from World War II, far more than any war since.
David Abell sent in DNA swabs from two of John Abell's sisters to keep on file with JPAC. While no matches have yet been found, the agency reportedly is working on some 700 active cases every month.
"It's been really great for me. I got excited and was able to put the pieces together," David Abell said.
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