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The remains of a recently identified 29th Infantry Division Soldier last seen alive on D-Day will be interred Friday at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
On June 6, 1944, Sgt. Ivor D. Thornton, 34, of Martinsville, Virginia, landed on Omaha Beach with Company H, 2nd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 29th ID.
The 29th is an Army National Guard division. During World War II, it was comprised of units from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
As part of the second wave of the D-Day invasion, Thornton’s company disembarked its landing craft around 7 a.m. Fellow Soldiers last observed him wading ashore, but he was not seen thereafter.
The day after the invasion, Thornton’s unit unsuccessfully searched for him. Consequently, the War Department listed him as missing in action.
On June 8, 1944, graves registration personnel recovered a set of remains from Omaha Beach they were unable to identify. They interred the remains in U.S. Military Cemetery Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, adjacent to Omaha Beach, and designated them X-159 St. Laurent.
Graves registration personnel attempted to identify X-159 in March 1945, but they could not associate the body with a specific casualty.
In June 1947, analysts with the American Graves Registration Command were also unable to identify X-159, and on March 3, 1949, a board of AGRC officers recommended the remains be declared unidentifiable.
In April 2022, Thornton's family, along with the family of another missing Soldier, requested X-159 be disinterred and compared to Thornton and the other Soldier.
The Defense Department and American Battle Monuments Commission exhumed the remains of X-159 in September 2023 and transferred them to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratory for analysis.
Using dental and anthropological analyses, the DPAA positively identified Thornton earlier this year.
Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System performed mitochondrial DNA analysis. The Bedford Boys Tribute Center assisted with the case.
Thornton’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, 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.
The DPAA website has more information on the agency’s mission to account for U.S. military members who went missing overseas.
—By William Costello, U.S. Army Human Resources Command
