Pvt. 1st Class Alcario V. Flores of Coolidge, Arizona, Killed in Action in Northern France in 1945, Finally Identified

The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on July 9th that U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class Alcario V. Flores, 37, of Coolidge, Arizona, killed in Northern France during World War II, was accounted for March 1st, 2024.

In January 1945, Flores was assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division in the European Theater during World War II.

Shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1944, German forces launched a major offensive operation in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace-Lorraine, France, known as Operation NORDWIND.

The German attack surged through Allied defenses along the Franco-German border, and the ensuing battle enveloped two U.S. Corps along a 40-mile-wide front. In the following few weeks, Company G found itself assigned to a sector at Reipertswiller, known as “Hoch Ebersberg” (Mount Ebersberg).

At some point on Jan 21st, Pfc. Flores was killed, but due to the intensity of the fighting his body was unable to be recovered. With no record of German forces capturing Flores, and no remains recovered, the War Department issued a “Report of Death” in Jan 1946.

Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, began looking for missing American personnel in the Reipertswiller and Wildenguth areas of France.

At the time, they were able to recover numerous sets of remains, but none found belonged to Flores. Because the remains could not be identified, they were interred in 1949 at the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France, known today as Lorraine American Cemetery.

DPAA historians have been conducting in-depth research into Soldiers missing from combat around Wildenguth and Reipertswiller, and in 2021 an anonymous metal detectorist discovered human remains while illegally collecting relics from a foxhole on Hoch Ebersberg.

The detectorist also discovered material evidence linking the remains to U.S. Army troops, to include clothing and 30-calibre casings. In December 2021, a DPAA Detachment Europe team recovered the remains and items from the southern slope of Hoch Ebersberg and transferred them to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis.

To identify Flores’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological, and other circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Pfc. Flores’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery in Dinozé, France, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Pfc. Flores will be buried in Tempe, Arizona, on August 3rd, 2024.

Pfc. Flores’ personnel profile can be found at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000XhDaEAK.

Story: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

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