Indiana National Guard renders military funeral honors

Photo By 1st Lt. Jonathan Padish | Indiana National Guardsmen render military funeral honors for U.S. Army Air Corps Tech. Sgt. Lawrence E. Reitz, a radio operator with the 343rd Bombardment Squadron, at Highland Cemetery in Attica, Ind., Aug. 6, 2023. Reitz's remains were repatriated from a 'tomb of the unknowns' burial site near Ploiești, Romania following coordination between Reitz's brother, Don Reitz, and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to identify and return Reitz's remains to the United States. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by 1st Lt. Jonathan W. Padish)  

ATTICA, IN, UNITED STATES

08.06.2023

Story by 1st Lt. Jonathan Padish 

181st Intelligence Wing

ATTICA, Ind. -- Service members from the Military Department of Indiana Ceremonial Unit and 181st Intelligence Wing rendered military funeral honors for U.S. Army Air Corps Tech. Sgt. Lawrence E. Reitz, a Hoopeston, Illinois native and radio operator with the 343rd Bombardment Squadron, at Highland Cemetery in Attica, Ind., Aug. 6.

Reitz was serving aboard a B-24 Liberator Aug. 1, 1943, when it crashed after being hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire during Operation TIDAL WAVE, the largest bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania. Reitz was 22 years old.

Reitz’s remains could not be identified and were buried as unknowns in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.

Following World War II, the American Graves Registration Command, tasked with recovering fallen American personnel, disinterred all American remains from the Bolovan Cemetery for identification. More than 80 unknowns could not be identified and were interred at Ardennes American Cemetery and Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, both in Belgium.

In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming unknowns believed to be associated with unaccounted-for service members from Operation TIDAL WAVE losses, sending the remains to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.

Reitz was accounted for by the DPAA May 5, 2023, after his remains were identified using circumstantial evidence as well as anthropological, mitochondrial DNA, Y chromosome DNA and autosomal DNA analysis.

Reitz’s brother, Don Reitz, coordinated with DPAA to help account for his brother’s remains. Don Reitz and other surviving family members attended the Aug. 6 ceremony.

During the ceremony, tactical air control party airmen from the 113th Air Support Operations Squadron coordinated a flyover of a B-52 Stratofortress. The aircraft itself was flown by Tech. Sgt. Reitz's old squadron, which is now under the 307th Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

Tech. Sgt. Reitz’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Impruneta, Italy, along with others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

For additional information about Tech. Sgt. Reitz, go to: https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/News-Releases/PressReleaseArticleView/Article/3417918/airman-accounted-for-from-world-war-ii-reitz-l/.

(This story is an update to a previous story written by Fonda Bock, which can be located here: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/450308/remains-world-war-ii-soldier-buried-williamsport-indiana.)

• Date Taken: 08.06.2023
• Date Posted: 08.06.2023 19:06
• Story ID: 450809
• Location: ATTICA, IN, US