WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Defense Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPPA) says they have positively identified the remains of a Kansas man who disappeared during combat in World War II (WWII).
Army Private Carl G. Dorsey, of Moline, was positively identified on June 15 and was 19 when he died in Germany. Dorsey was assigned to Company I, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, and 4th Infantry Division. His company was fighting German forces in the Hürtgen Forest near Grosshau when he was reported missing in action on Dec. 4.
His body was never reported as recovered, and the Germans did not report him as a prisoner of war. He was declared killed in action one year later. Further attempts to locate and identify his remains were unsuccessful, and he was declared nonrecoverable in December of 1950.
While studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains recovered near Gey, Germany, in 1946 possibly belonged to Dorsey. The remains, which had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Belgium, were disinterred in July 2021 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for identification.
Scientists used dental, anthropological analysis, circumstantial evidence, and DNA analysis to confirm Dorsey’s identity. Dorsey’s family was notified in June of his identification. His remains will be returned with a burial service scheduled for Sept. 3 in Grenola.