LOST GRAVES OF ‘88 HILL’
On a snowy morning in April 2001, fifty-six years after they were killed, the skeletal remains of three American soldiers were found on a remote hillside in Germany. The discovery of their long-lost graves ended a Second World War mystery and closed a dark chapter in the lives of three families.
PFCs Jack C. Beckwith of LaMoure, North Dakota, Saul Kokotovich of Gary, Indiana, and David A. Read of Hudson, Ohio, died in December 1944. They were battle casualties of the 395th Infantry Regiment, part of the 99th Infantry Division. The trio were killed during an American attack launched in mid-December 1944.
Beckwith and Kokotovich, both twenty years old, were BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) gunners with Company C, 395th. Read, nineteen, was a radio operator with Cannon Company, 395th. Less than five months after the three died, the war in Europe ended, but their bodies remained missing.
Vernon Swanson, a close comrade of Beckwith, returned home to Chicago in January 1946. Shortly thereafter, he penned a note to the army asking for the location of Beckwith’s grave. The reply was disconcerting. The remains had not been recovered or positively identified. Search efforts were underway. The same was true of Kokotovich and Read. Their relatives wrote letters asking for answers. But the army offered only ‘deep regret’ and folded American flags. In 1951, the army deemed the remains of Beckwith, Kokotovich and Read to be ‘non-recoverable.’ Their case files were closed.
As decades passed the Second World War became, to many, as remote as ancient Greece. But the war was of great interest to a pair of young Belgians, Jean-Louis Seel of Ensival and Jean-Philippe Speder of Thirimont. They met in 1978 and began searching together for battlefield relics as a hobby.
In September 1988, Seel and Speder were digging in the Ardennes forest, near the Belgian-German border, when they made an extraordinary discovery. In an old foxhole, they chanced upon the complete skeleton of PFC Alphonse M. Sito of Baltimore. Sito, a machine gunner with the 99th Division, had been missing since 16 December, 1944, the day German armies launched a surprise attack in the Ardennes forest that became know as the ‘Battle of the Bulge.’ Sito’s remains were turned over to the U.S. Army and then interred by the family at St. Stanislaus cemetery in Baltimore.
I was a student at The Ohio State University at the time and an associate member of the 99th Infantry Division Association. News of Sito’s recovery piqued my imagination. If the two Belgians could find a missing GI by sheer luck, the remains of other ‘Missing in Action’ GIs might well be located if a more scientific approach were taken.
Using records of the American Battle Monuments Commission, I compiled a list of thirty-three missing soldiers from the 99th, most of whom were lost during the Battle of the Bulge. I showed the list to Richard H. Byers of Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio. Byers, who died in March 2001, was a 99th Division veteran and a seminal member of the 99th Division Association. I proposed publishing the list in the Checkerboard, the association newspaper. In March 1990, the thirty-three names were published along with this request: ‘If you have knowledge of what happened to any of these men, please contact Dick Byers. With a few facts, a search could be started.’ Byers received a flood of mail. We then evaluated the data. Some of the best information concerned the death of 2nd Lt. L.O. Holloway Jr. of Corpus Christie, Texas.
Based on the evidence, I prepared a map pinpointing the location where I believed Holloway’s body was last seen. Byers’s hand carried the map to Europe and to the two Belgians. Armed with this information Seel and Speder entered the Ardennes in November 1990. After a two-day search, Holloway’s remains were found along with his dogtags and other personal effects.
The following week, an army team received the remains from the Belgians. The bones and artifacts were shipped to the army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. After forensic analysis, Holloway’s identification was confirmed and his family notified. In September 1991, he was interred in Texas at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
In suburban Chicago, the Holloway case inspired Vernon Swanson. Perhaps the remains of his buddy, Jack Beckwith, could be found. Swanson enlisted the cooperation of his wartime comrade, Ron Whitmarsh of Richardson, Texas. Both men had seen Beckwith’s shallow grave and other graves only a few feet away. A rifle stuck in the ground marked at least one burial spot. Other graves had only a twig with a dogtag attached. This makeshift cemetery stood on a wooded hillside southeast of Monschau, Germany. The Americans dubbed the place ‘88 Hill’. The name came from the fearsome 88-mm artillery projectiles used by the Germans.
Beckwith, Kokotovich and Read died on the hill from enemy shellfire. The entire area was abandoned to the Germans when their attack started before dawn on December 16. During the retreat, dead GIs were hastily buried where they fell.
In 1991, hoping to find Beckwith’s grave, Swanson and Whitmarsh joined forces with Byers, Seel, Speder and myself. The hunt was on. The search – expanded to include Saul Kokotovich and David Read – gradually dwarfed the effort to locate Holloway.
Reams of correspondence and army documents were collected. There were trips to the National Archives, the National Personnel Records Center and the U.S. Army Military History Institute. The families of all three missing men helped. Above all, Swanson and Whitmarsh pursued the project as if it was the sole reason for their existence. Ironically, it was a single sheet of paper that offered the best hope for success. It was a crude map drawn in 1948 by Donald O. Woolf Jr. who had also known Beckwith and had seen his grave. The map, drawn to aid the army’s search effort after the war, was found in Beckwith’s army file.
Woolf noted the graves near a cluster of trees at the edge of a clearing. Unfortunately, he had got the compass direction wrong as well as the grid coordinates. The army considered the map useless. I found it valuable. Woolf’s errors were easy to see. But finding the clearing and the cluster of trees was problematic. They had long since disappeared. The hill had been solid fir trees for years. The key was an aerial photograph from the National Archives. It showed 88 Hill in December 1944. I found the clearing and the grouping of trees, then transferred their locations to a modern topographic map.
Armed with my findings, Seel and Speder hiked to 88 Hill in February 1992. The two diggers found an M1 rifle, three U.S. Army combat shoes and an American handgrenade at the precise spot where I had pinpointed the graves. Surely, they had found the right place. The rifle must have been one of the grave makers. Seel and Speder dug countless holes and trenches, but found nothing. The area yielded only frustration. One possibility was that the graves had been discovered in 1945 and the bodies disinterred. If so, they would have been buried as ‘unknowns’ at one of the U.S. military cemeteries in northwest Europe. Sadly, the quest for Beckwith, Kokotovich and Read was at an end again. It was tough news to deliver to their families, especially to Beckwith’s eighty-eight year-old mother.
A bit more was done for one of Read’s four brothers. In October 1995, Verne Read, a World War II veteran, traveled to Europe. He and a friend rendezvoused with Swanson, his wife, Seel and Speder. The foursome escorted Read and his friend to 88 Hill. The graves area was among the spots on the tour. After Read’s visit, Seel and Speder had little cause to return. Years passed. The aborted search effort faded into a memory.
Beckwith’s mother passed away in 1997. Read’s oldest brother, ‘Tommy,’ died in 2000. But the ghosts of 88 Hill lingered.
In March 2001, Seel and Speder heard an astounding rumor. Another digger had supposedly found dogtags and a wallet belonging to Beckwith. But there was cause for disbelief. ‘Knowing the guy, we had doubts about the discovery,’ Seel said. Within days, it became clear the discovery was no hoax. Anxiety gripped Seel. Had Beckwith’s grave been looted by this relic hunter? On March 26, Seel returned to 88 Hill with Erich Hönen, a forest ranger. There was no sign of fresh digging. The place had remained untouched since 1992. The dogtags and wallet apparently came from someplace other than the hill. But where? On April 11, 2001, Seel decided to double-check the hill. He scanned the suspected graves area with his metal detector, crossed a forest trail and continued exploring. He quickly unearthed an American handgrenade. This dangerous device was missed in 1992.
Three steps from the grenade, he heard a familiar sound through his earphones. It was the tell-tale ping of a stainless steel dogtag. Seel flipped it from the soil with his shoe. After grabbing the shiny object, he starred in bug-eyed amazement at the name – READ, DAVID A. Had the dogtag marked a grave?
Seel ran out of time and departed without further investigation. He made plans to return with Speder and two friends who were new to their search team since 1992. The newcomers were Marc Marique of Visé, Belgium and Jean-Luc Menestrey of Stembert, Belgium. Early on Tuesday, April 17, Seel and Marique ascended 88 Hill. Two hours later, Speder joined them as did forest ranger Hönen.
In late afternoon, Speder fired a short e-mail to Vernon Swanson, Byron Whitmarsh and myself:
‘Jack Beckwith, Saul Kokotovich and David Read no longer on the MIA list. Bodies found today. Complete report tonite.’
After more than five decades, 88 Hill had finally relinquished the last of its dead. The three were found a scant 30 yards from the 1992 search area. Read’s dogtag had indeed marked his resting place. The graves of Beckwith and Kokotovich were easily found several feet away. For two days, Seel, Speder, Marique and Menestrey labored to exhume the remains. Each of the dead had a single dogtag around his neck. Rotted clothing was also found, along with boots and overshoes. Apparently, most personal effects were removed in 1944 before the men were buried. What about Beckwith’s dogtags and wallet found in March 2001? They must have been among his personal effects and were lost elsewhere in the forest. It was not uncommon for a GI to have more than one pair of dogtags.
Once excavation work in the forest ended, Seel e-mailed David Roath, director of the U.S. Army Memorial Affairs Activity, Europe. A meeting was arranged for April 26. As planned, Roath met the diggers and viewed the skeletons and artifacts. Before returning to his office at Landstuhl, Germany, another visit was scheduled. Roath would bring a recovery team and take custody of the remains. The team arrived on 14 May, 2001. With Roath were four specialists from Memorial Affairs Europe as well as two other members of the organization. There was also a DNA expert from Austria who came along as an observer. They took possession of the remains, set up camp on 88 Hill and began the formal identification process. ‘It was impressive to watch,’ said Seel, who found their depth of knowledge, precision and professionalism phenomenal.
After three days, Roath’s team placed each soldier in a metal casket. International politics dictated the remains be given to the German government, then officially handed over to the United States. On May 18, a solemn ceremony took place at the German military cemetery near the village of Hürtgen. A U.S. Army honor guard from the 1st Infantry Division accepted three flag-draped caskets from the German War Graves Commission.
Across the Atlantic, on June 7, the army telephoned the next-of-kin with official word of recent events. The call came from the Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operations Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Two weeks after receiving official word, the three families met for the first time. They gathered at Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, site of the 52nd annual reunion of the 99th Division. Besides getting to know each other, they met the four diggers along with Vern Swanson, Byron Whitmarsh and myself. At Fort Mitchell, the families learned about an incredible story that unfolded in the wake of the 88 Hill discovery.
Energized by their recent success, the diggers decided to revisit the location of a 99th Division aid station used during the Battle of the Bulge. In the 1990s, Seel and Speder combed this area many times. They had hoped to find three infantrymen whose bodies were last seen there, but no trace of them ever surfaced.
One thought now weighed on Seel and Speder. Maybe they had missed the soldiers by only a few yards, just like the graves on 88 Hill. Marc Marique took up the quest on May 25. He trekked to the aid station site and began searching with his metal detector. With uncanny ease, he uncovered a corroded brass dogtag. It belonged to one of three soldiers. This stunning development sparked plans to scour every inch of the aid station. One week after finding the dogtag, Marique returned to the spot and began excavating a hole about three yards away. Seel and Speder accompanied him and began cleaning out another hole. Suddenly, Marique called out. ‘Hey guys, come see … I have a snow boot.’ Together, the Belgians probed deeper. Bones emerged. They had found the man named on the dogtag. Besides his skeleton, they hit upon the remains of the other two men last seen at the aid station. For fifty-six years, the three warriors laid buried in this common grave.
Seel telephoned David Roath with the news. He could hardly believe it. Once more, he assembled a recovery team and traveled to meet the diggers. On June 29, 2001, a ceremony took place at the church in Krinkelt, Belgium. The sanctuary was packed with spectators and officials, including the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Three caskets were formally turned over to the U.S. Army. In less than two months, the diggers had located six 99th Division soldiers missing since December 1944. This achievement brought feelings of pride and accomplishment. Yet, the end was nowhere in sight for the Belgians and their American colleagues. Today, the search continues for other missing Second World War soldiers.
William
Warnock
July 4, 2001
The Color Guard of the 82nd Engineer Battalion based in Germany escort the remains of 399th Division soldiers from the Church in Krinkelt. Photo Scott Long