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For most families, the news that their missing loved one from a past war has been identified comes in the form of a long-awaited phone call. However, for James Seiferheld Sr., the long-lost son of U.S. Army Air Forces Sgt. Frank Seiferheld, a Defense POW/MIA Account Agency article on the local news was the missing piece that connected him to the puzzle of his recently identified father.
In January 1945, Seiferheld was a radio operator on a B-17 “Flying Fortress,” assigned to the 348th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 99th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean and European Theater of Operations of World War II. On a bombing raid of an oil depot near Regensburg, Germany on January 20, the aircraft experienced engine trouble after departing Italy. According to records of the mission, the aircraft’s pilot radioed that they were returning to the Tortorella Airfield. The last sighting of Seiferheld’s aircraft was west of Udine, Italy. Seiferheld and the crew were never heard from again.
“I only knew that he was killed in the war,” said Seiferheld Sr. “I was told that his plane went down over the Italian Alps, and that’s all.”
Growing up, his father was never a topic of conversation. He knew little-to-nothing about him, and his mother rarely spoke of him after they divorced. His curiosity prevailed about five years prior to his father’s identification, when he hired a genealogist in hopes of uncovering the mystery of who his father really was. After searching through documents and records, Seiferheld Sr. learned that his father enlisted into the U.S. Army and was declared Missing in Action during World War II. A tombstone dedicated to his father was placed in Florence American Cemetery, Italy, but his final resting place remained unknown.
In late May 1945, the remains of an unknown American serviceman were discovered floating in the Gulf of Trieste, approximately 100 yards from the Grando shoreline in Italy. The remains were transported to the U.S. Military Cemetery (USMC), Cormons, Italy, where they were buried as an Unknown. Six months later, the remains were transferred again, and despite being recovered in the same vicinity as other identified members of Seiferheld’s crew, the remains could not be identified. In late 1945, they were officially determined unidentifiable and were interred at Florence American Cemetery.
Almost 70 years later, in 2015, a team from DPAA conducted an underwater recovery mission of aircraft wreckage off the coast of Grando, Italy. Remains from the wreckage were subsequently identified as Seiferheld’s crewmembers. Before finalizing identifications for the crew, DPAA disinterred the Unknown believed to possibly be Seiferheld from Florence American Cemetery for DNA analysis.
After laboratory analyses and DNA testing at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), it was determined that the unknown remains shared DNA with a family reference sample given by the Seiferheld family, ultimately solidifying his identification.
James Seiferheld Jr., the grandson of Seiferheld, was visiting Rockaway Beach, Florida, when he heard the news of his grandfather’s identification.
“I never knew my real grandfather,” said Seiferheld Jr. “No one ever talked about him because he went into the military, and eventually remarried to someone else.”
While in Florida, Seiferheld Jr. ran into a friend who coincidentally saw a DPAA article on the news announcing that Seiferheld had been accounted for. During their conversation, the friend asked Seiferheld Jr. if he was related to Frank Seiferheld.
“I go ‘oh my god yes, that’s my grandfather,’” says Seiferheld Jr. “He said he was watching the news a week or two prior and they had a story about finding Frank Seiferheld’s remains. I was shocked. If I didn’t stop and talk to my friend that day, I probably would’ve never known. This was all meant to be.”
Seiferheld Jr. immediately shared the news with his father and contacted DPAA to get more information.
“If it wasn’t for somebody else seeing it on the news and telling my son who then told me, [DPAA] never would’ve heard from us,” said Seiferheld Sr.
Sergeant Seiferheld was laid to rest on Oct. 10, 2024, with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Seiferheld Jr., his cousin Brian Carter, and sister Lenora Gresser attended to witness the ceremony.
“It was an overwhelming and heartwarming experience to finally have some closure,” said Carter. “So many years have passed, and we’re just so overwhelmed with the honor of being here with all these other heroes in Arlington.”
While DPAA works through the painstaking process of researching, recovering and identifying missing personnel, it is the service causality officers who notify the families, answer questions and ensures the hero’s homecoming is in line with the families wishes, and that all proper military honors are rendered after the identifications are made. The service follows each initial phone call up with an in-person briefing to the hero’s family.
“It’s so fulfilling walking out of a house after a three-hour meeting with a family about their Soldier coming home,” said William E. "Shorty" Cox, U.S. Army Senior Mortuary Affairs Specialist - Identification Case Manager for the Seiferheld family. “The briefings run the gamut of laughter, tears, and amazement that this could even happen. I guess a sense of fulfillment; I started working in this mission in 1994 as a Recovery Team Sergeant,… and I’m still able to be a small part of such an important mission it’s incredible.”
The partnership between the agency and the service casualty offices guarantees the stories of service and sacrifice are never forgotten before and after the identifications are made. There are currently more than 72,000 missing Americans from World War II.
| Date Taken: | 10.17.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.17.2024 12:42 |
| Story ID: | 483340 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Hometown: | NEW YORK, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 34 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Long-lost son welcomes MIA father home after nearly 80 years, by SGT Ashleigh Maxwell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
