Memorial

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Pvt Alevin A. Hathaway was sent overseas in November 1943.

He was wounded in action in France in August 1944, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart Medal for the first time.

He and four other men were sent on a reconnaissance patrol on 6 November 1944 and were not seen again.

He was reported as missing in action on 6 November 1944 and was officially declared dead one day and one year later.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. They conducted several investigations in the Hürtgen area between 1946 and 1950, but were unable to recover or identify Hathaway’s remains. He was declared non-recoverable in December 1950.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains, designated X-2739 Neuville, recovered from a minefield south of Hürtgen in 1946 possibly belonged to Hathaway. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in 1950, were disinterred in April 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for identification.

To identify Hathaway’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence, including fragments of personal documents found on the battlefield. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Pvt Hathaway’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Margraten, Netherlands, along with the others still missing from World War II. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Hathaway is reburied in his hometown.