EASTEND, Saskatchewan, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- A Canadian family said it has solved the mystery of a soldier who went missing after fighting in World War II, with the discovery of his remains.
Pfc. Lawrence S. Gordon, a native of Eastend, Saskatchewan, was fighting in the U.S. Army in 1944 as part of the D-Day invasion when his armored vehicle was blown up by German soldiers near Normandy. Gordon's body was never identified and decades of petitions to the U.S. government to declassify records relating to unidentified soldiers' remains from the war went unanswered, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said.
The U.S. government turned over files last year including bone and DNA samples. Gordon's relatives then convinced the German and French governments to dig up the corresponding remains, which had been traced to a cemetery for Nazi soldiers in France administered by the German government.
The remains were exhumed in September and a French lab has now confirmed it is Gordon's body.
The family said he wound up in the German cemetery by accident because he had scavenged some clothes from a dead German soldier before he was killed.
The family said they will begin what's expected to be the lengthy process of having the remains returned to Canada for burial there.
