Loring Evans Lord

S/Sgt Loring E. Lord graduated from Somerville High School and as employed in an aircraft factory. | | He volunteered for the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in Boston, Massachusetts on 10 October 1942. | | Statement of S/Sgt Frederick W. Eitzel, a crew member of another airplane in the same group: | "On 21 March 1945, I was flying in an A-26 airplane in the No. 6 position of the 1st Flight, 1st Box. I saw Lt. Cotton´s plane receiving a direct flak hit on the bomb run about two minutes before bombs away. His plane was flying no. 2 position of the same flight. Upon being hit, Lt. Cotton´s right wing was partially blown off. The plane made a rising turn and then fell to the left, passing under the formation. After this I lost complete sight of the stricken plane." | | The entire crew of three was killed. | | Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in the European Theater. During their investigations, AGRC members interviewed local residents and officials for information about missing American servicemen. In 1949, they visited villages between Velen and Dulmen, including Groß Reken, where a former police chief reported seeing an American plane go down after one of its wings was shot off. Mr. Heinrich Mels, reported the German Wehrmacht immediately secured the crash site, and buried several airmen in the local cemetery. | | Earlier in April 1945, those remains were exhumed when U.S. Army forces occupied the town. Designated X-273 and X-274 Margraten, they were identified as crewmembers aboard Lord’s aircraft. This prompted a renewed search of the crash site outside Groß Reken, where investigators located several aircraft parts. Unfortunately, no other remains were located. | | In 2014, DPAA historians received information from a German researcher, Adolf Hagedorn, about a possible crash site he believed could be associated with Lord’s aircraft. A DPAA investigation team met with Hagedorn and reviewed his extensive research, and the possible crash site. Later in 2018, after several recovery missions, DPAA excavations located identification media for one of Lord’s crewmembers, and possible osseous remains. These collected materials were then sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis and identification. | | To identify Lord’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA and mitochondrial genome sequence analysis. | | Lord’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery. A rosette is placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. | | S/Sgt Lord was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts on 7 June 2025.