USMC WWI MIA found after 92 years

June 23, 2010 · By Jerry Castillo

On Sept. 15, 1918, with World War I nearing an end, United States Marine George Henry Humphrey was killed by a machine gun bullet through his helmet.

Pinned down by the Germans, George’s fellow soldiers hastily buried him in the woods of rural northern France.

They drew a map and later tried to explain the location to George’s family, but the grave could not be found.

Until now. A hobbyist with a metal detector made the discovery last fall.

On Wednesday, George Humphrey will be reburied at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He had family roots in Wisconsin, and a couple of his relatives from our state will be present when he is lowered into his final, final resting place.

“You’d think after 92 years he’d never be found. It tells people don’t give up. There’s always hope for families,” said John Humphrey of Oconomowoc.

John, a retired farmer, would be George’s first cousin once removed. He was born two years after George died, making him 90 now. Because of health concerns, he is not making the trip to Arlington this week.

But his two sisters are going at government expense. That would be Helen Neitzel, 77, of Horicon and Frances Richter, 83, of Watertown.

Helen said she was astounded when she got the news, though she and John admit they didn’t know much about George Humphrey or his sad and mysterious end. John thought maybe it was an identity scam when he first was notified.

“I called my sister first and told her. She said, ‘Are you sure you’re not drinking?’ ” Helen said. “It’s just such an amazing story. I said I had to go and see it through.”

How rare is it to find and identify remains of missing U.S. service members from the First World War? It’s happened just five times in the past seven years, according to Lee Tucker, spokesman for the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii.

That still leaves more than 3,000 Americans missing and unaccounted for in the so-called war to end all wars.

George’s father, Griffith, was a child when he emigrated from Wales with family and settled in the Jefferson County community of Ixonia, where they farmed. As an adult, Griffith moved east and settled in Utica, N.Y., where George grew up and eventually joined the Marine Corps.

He was 29 when he died in the St. Mihiel offensive, the first U.S. led offensive of the war and ultimately a success. He was buried near where he fell, not far from Thiaucourt in the Lorraine region of France.

A year later in 1919, George’s brother, Oliver, was able to track down a Marine who fought alongside him and helped bury him. George’s family was trying to find his remains.

“I know my parents would be equally as anxious as you are if the circumstances were reversed,” the soldier, Frank A. Cleland of California, wrote to Oliver. He described the battle and included a hand-drawn map.

“During the day, we buried your brother on the crest of that hill about 150 yards from that trail,” he wrote. “Whatever personal effects your brother had were buried with him as they were shelling the hill all the time and we didn’t have time to search him, and there was no one to send them in with anyway.”

More than nine decades passed before a relic hunter with a metal detector picked up a signal and began digging. When he realized he had found human remains, he alerted police who contacted the U.S. military.

A team was sent to the site in October. Every bone and every object were cataloged in a 74-page book sent to John Humphrey in Oconomowoc. George had folded a New York Times article from June 9, 1918, and tucked it in his wallet. Remarkably, the headline was still readable, even though the soldier was not buried in any kind of box: “Shelling near Montdidier; Heavy German fire may be the prelude of a new attack.”

His uniform had mostly disintegrated, though the helmet and some hardware survived along with coins, a canteen, razor, toothbrush, fountain pen, tobacco pipe and a marksman badge with GH Humphrey engraved on the back. Dental records confirmed the identity.

George never married, and neither he nor his only sibling, Oliver, ever had children. So the military turned to these cousins as next of kin. They started with Edith Scott of Washington, D.C., whose mother at one time had lived with cousin George and his family.

“When we would visit Arlington National Cemetery, mother would point to the tomb of the unknown soldier and say that could be your cousin George,” Edith, 85, said.

She plans to be at George’s committal there on Wednesday. She invited Major Gen. Gratien Maire, the defense attaché at the French Embassy in Washington. In accepting the offer, he praised the sacrifice of 1st Sgt. Humphrey.

“Young men like him came to France to liberate my country. What France has achieved since then, we owe it to them,” he wrote to her.

Horicon cousin Helen Neitzel feels a special bond to this long lost relative. Her own son, Lt. Col. Rob Neitzel, 42, has served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

She has trouble defining exactly the emotion she feels about George Humphrey.

“It isn’t grief. It’s admiration. I don’t know if that’s the right word. We’re free because of what he did for us.”

by: Jim Stingl at jsonline.com

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