Remains of WWII soldier coming home

SEATTLE – Nearly 64 years after he went missing in action in Germany’s Huertgen Forest, the scene of the fiercest, longest-running battle in U.S. history, Army 2nd Lt. Ernest E. Martin is coming home to Washington.

The remains of the World War II soldier, a member of Charlie Company, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, were found in 2000 in an unmarked grave. A construction crew clearing unexploded wartime artillery shells, bombs and other explosives left over from the carnage in the forest found the grave, the Defense Department said this week.

Although his hometown was Hanover, Mont., with the passage of time, Martin’s next of kin became a niece and nephew, Ellen Pollock and Tom Rogers, living in the Kittitas Valley near Ellensburg, who provided DNA samples to verify the remains were Martin’s.

Scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory confirmed the results only after painstaking forensic and detective work over the past several years.

Pollock said they knew little about Martin, who was the brother of her and Rogers’ mother, but always hoped he would be found. A University of Washington graduate in mechanical engineering commissioned through the school’s ROTC program, Martin had been serving with the 109th for more than a week when he died.

The family feels fortunate his remains were recovered given that 78,000 people from World War II are still listed as missing in action, Martin’s survivors said in a printed statement.

“We hope these other families will receive the kind of closure we are experiencing.”

Martin’s odyssey home is “mind-boggling,” Pollock said. A Lewiston, Mont., couple noticed a local news article about the Army’s search for Martin’s family, triggering a diligent, painstaking effort by the Army and veterans groups that found them in 2006.

The family chose to bury Martin in Ellensburg, she said, instead of a location like Arlington National Cemetery, so they can tend to his grave each Veterans Day and Memorial Day.

Martin, who was 24 when he died, will be buried at 1 p.m. Oct. 11 at the IOOF Cemetery, 1900 Brick Road, Ellensburg.