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On 9 Sep 1944, just north of Maizieres-les-Metz, a tank of Company B, 40th Tank Battalion, was hit by a German anti-tank gun and burned. Two crew members escaped. Three did not. When B/40 commander Capt. Emerson Wolfe examined the tank after it stopped burning, he could not detect any remains of the three men. So, all three were believed to have been cremated in the fire. However, on 25 Mar 1946 -- a year and a half later -- a US Graves Registration team found the tank which they saw had serial number USA 3883676-S and was marked 7-40-B-18 and examined it for remains. Their trained eyes identified some charred bone fragments that were later confirmed to be from the same person, designated Unknown X-6010 (St Avold). Despite this, the Army correspondence with the families as late as 1950 continued to state "Records show that an examination of the interior of the tank, after it had stopped burning, revealed no trace of any bodies." So, the Army had not made the connection of the tank in which the Unknown remains were found with the tank with the same serial number and markings in which the three men were killed. It was only about 2020 when the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency began including tank serial numbers in their database that the connection was finally made. There was no way at that time to associate the tank with the tank destroyed 9 Sep 1944, although the tank was clearly marked as a B/40 tank. But now we have a significant collection of documents. Combining the contemporary records of the 40th Tank Battalion, 48th Armored Infantry Battalion (to which B/40 was attached 9 Sep 1944) and Combat Command A (to which both battalions were attached) with the Individual Deceased Personnel File of one of the three men (Charles Bowen) killed in the tank and the file of St Avold X-6010, it is now clear that the only B/40 tank lost at that location was the one in which the three men were killed. Thus the bone fragments must be from one of the three men killed 9 Sep 1944 and originally believed to have been entirely consumed in the fire. This web page presents the information from all records. It applies what is known about St Avold Unknown X-6010 and narrows his identity to two of the three men killed. |
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 Tank Commander - Sgt. Leonard A. Reamer 36 167 829 - KIA
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Both 40th Tank Battalion and 48th Armored Infantry Battalion were elements of Combat Command A (CCA) on 9 Sep 1944. The CCA After-Action Report makes no mention either Battalion. But it does note that "While holding a roadblock one mile south of Talange. the 2d Platoon, A Co, 814 TD Bn, reported the capture of 25 PW's. This platoon reported one M-10 out of action as a result of enemy artillery fire." This was very close to where the remains of St Avold X-6010 were recovered from his B/40 tank.
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Click on title text to see PDF of IDPF. Cpl. Charles Howard Bowen was the bow gunner of the tank. His normal position was in the right front of the tank to fire the machine gun. There was a hatch above his head that allowed entry to and exit from the position directly, without having to go through the turret. The left bow position, which also had its own hatch, was the driver's position. The cannoneer fired the tank's main gun, aided by the assistant driver moving the ammunition into place for the driver. So in combat, they would have been at the rear end of the main gun. The tank commander would be in the turret for direct observation. As with all other elements of 48th Armored Infantry Battalion and attached units, B/40 and the tank were in a defensive position, with no mission other than to serve as a target for German forces in a feint, so that those German forces would not be used against the main attacking 7th Armored Division forces. Thus, the men were not in their combat positions at the time the tank was hit. The most important account in the IDPF is the personal account of the driver T/5 James W. Logan, which is on PDF pages 27-29. The following are portions of that account, in a memorandum from 7th Armored Division Headquarters dated 6 Mar 1945 (just two days after the B/40 Morning Reports changed the status of the men from MIA to KIA).
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Click on title text to see PDF of IDPF.
Sgt. Leonard A. Reamer was the commander of the tank. His normal position was in the turret of the tank for direct observation when possible. When the tank was hit, it was in a defensive stationary position, and he was in the turret, keeping watch. His Individual Deceased Personnel File adds no information not already in the IDPF of Charles Bowen (above) about the event. |
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Click on title text to see PDF of IDPF. Pvt. Harry B. Pake was the cannoneer of the tank. His normal position was inside tank. When the tank was hit, it was in a defensive stationary position, and he and Sgt. Reamer were in the turret, keeping watch. His Individual Deceased Personnel File adds no information not already in the IDPFs of Charles Bowen and Leonard Reamer (above) about the event other than to give the emergency addressees of four members of the platoon, all of whom survived and probably had no direct knowledge of the event. |
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Click on title text to see PDF of IDPF. St. Avold Unknown X-6010 is currently buried at the Permanent U. S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France, in plot F, row 1, grave 9. Burial was 9 Jun 1950. Disinterment for the move to final burial was 6 Jul 1948, at which time the condition of the remains was "Body consist of: fragment of spine, pelvic, right and left femur, sacrum and small amount of charred bones. Final stage of decomposition." (PDF 11) Intial burial was at the Temporary U. S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold in plot OO, row 4, grave 52 after arriving at the cemetery 5 Apr 1946. (PDF 33) T/5 Walter Kohute of the 3049th Graves Registration Company led the team that found the remains 25 Mar 1946 in the tank with serial number USA 3883676-S and was marked 7-40-B-18. (PDF 45; 39-44) He was searching for the remains of T/5 Randall Klinger of D/40 when he found the tank marked B/40. He was clearly ignorant about the 40th Tank Battalion. D/40 had light tanks, while the tank in which he found the remains was a medium B/40 tank. So he should have known immediately that the remains were not those of Klinger, but he persisted in believing the remains to be Klinger. Nevertheless, he did an excellent job of documenting the tank and where he found it. The remains apparently remained in the tank until T/5 Kohute led a full recovery team and recovered them 5 Apr 1946. He thoroughly documented this recovery, including a hand-drawn map showing the location as Map of Europe 1:200,000 Verdun-Wissembourg Sheet 57 U - 856698. (PDF 39-44) The Coordinates Translator of the EchoDelta.net web site translates this to latitude and longitude 49° 13' 03'' N 6° 09' 56'' E.
Here is the position plotted on a 1940 plan of the area. On this map, the larger yellow box is at about the location of the grid square in which the B/40 Morning Reports placed the Company Headquarters (see map above in B/40 Morning Reports section). So, the tank was very close to B/40 Headquarters but not at the same location.  |
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Since we now have the September 1944 complete B/40 Morning Reports, complete After Action Reports of all relevant units (40 Tank, 48 AIB, CCA), the IDPF of Charles Bowen and the file of St. Avold Unknown X-6010, we have knowledge that clearly was not known in 1946 when X-6010 was recovered (by a team that did not even know enough to tell that a medium tank and a light tank were involved in separate actions in the same area). Here are the key findings:
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Active overview of all pages at the 7th Armored Division web site
