60 years later, World War II soldier's remains coming home
By BILL HANNA
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - A shaving brush.
A piece of a comb.
Part of a boot.
A worn set of dog tags.
These clues helped unearth a 60-year-old mystery about the whereabouts of Pfc. Preston "Pug" Harris.
In November 1944, the 23-year-old soldier from Greenville, Texas, was part of the 405th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division that was fighting along the heavily fortified Siegfried Line near the German-Netherlands border.
The regiment's records state that Harris was killed Nov. 22, 1944, near Beeck, Germany.
He was eight days short of his 24th birthday.
Harris was officially listed as killed in action, but the location of his body was unknown. The family was told that he might have been buried in an unmarked grave at a military cemetery in the Netherlands.
His family knew little else.
"One of my other uncles wrote one of the men in Preston's unit who said they were in a field when an 88 (mm) round came in on him and the other guy, and that was it," said Harris' nephew, Knighton Hudson, 50, of Wylie in North Texas.
The first step toward solving the mystery occurred in June 2003 when a German company that was removing unexploded ordnance from the battlefield uncovered human remains in an unmarked grave.
The personal items found in the grave led officials to believe they had discovered a U.S. soldier's remains. The remains were transferred to the Hurtgen War Cemetery and later to the U.S. Army Mortuary Affairs Activity in Landstuhl, Germany.
A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii came to the Beeck area in June, excavated the site and took possession of the remains, Hudson said. After examining dental and medical records, the investigators were able to identify Harris.
A military representative visited Harris' family in February and returned some of the personal items that had been recovered.
Bob Mason, general manager of Peters Funeral Home in Greenville, said his staff did a double take when they first learned the date of Harris' death.
"It was a very interesting thing when we started talking about a death that occurred on Nov. 22, 1944," Mason said.
Harris' military funeral is scheduled for March 12 in Greenville. But the service won't include a ceremonial rifle volley.
"My grandmother didn't want that," Hudson said. "She felt like he already had enough shooting over there."
Harris was the youngest of 10 children. The only surviving family member is his 89-year-old sister, Maple Harris Hudson.
Knighton Hudson said his mother is still coming to terms with the discovery of her brother's remains.
"She was kind of in shock," Knighton Hudson said. "She basically figured for the last 60 years that he was buried somewhere over there and then all of the sudden, she finds out he's been found.
"I think more than anything she was heartened that she was able to fulfill her mother's wishes to bring him home. I really don't think it's hit her yet."
Through the years, the old photographs and letters from Harris have been lost. Only an old photograph from a local history book shows him in his Army uniform.
Knighton Hudson said as a child he heard that his uncle loved horses and was fond of smoking a corncob pipe.
"He was a farmer from a whole family of farmers," Knighton Hudson said. "As far as I know, his aspiration was to come back home and be a farmer. That was what he wanted to do."