ATTICA, Ind. - Service members from the Military Department of Indiana Ceremonial Unit and 181st Intelligence Wing rendered military funeral honors for U.S. Army Air Corps Tech. Sgt. Lawrence E. Reitz, a radio operator with the 343rd Bombardment Squadron who was killed in action in 1943.
Reitz was serving aboard a B-24 Liberator Aug. 1, 1943, when it crashed after being hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire during Operation TIDAL WAVE, the largest bombing mission against the oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania. Reitz was 22 years old.
Reitz’s remains could not be identified and were buried in the Hero Section of the Civilian and Military Cemetery of Bolovan, Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania.
Following World War II, the American Graves Registration Command disinterred all American remains from the Bolovan Cemetery for identification. More than 80 unknowns could not be identified and were interred at Ardennes American Cemetery and Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, both in Belgium.
In 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began exhuming unknowns believed to be associated with unaccounted-for service members from Operation TIDAL WAVE losses, sending the remains to the DPAA Laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for examination and identification.
Reitz was accounted for by the DPAA May 5, 2023, after his remains were identified using circumstantial evidence and anthropological, mitochondrial DNA, Y chromosome DNA and autosomal DNA analysis.
Reitz’s brother, Don Reitz, coordinated with DPAA to help account for his brother’s remains. Don Reitz and other surviving family members attended the Aug. 6 ceremony at Highland Cemetery in Attica.
Tech. Sgt. Reitz’s name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Impruneta, Italy, 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.