Sowell, Richard G.
Army Sergeant

Richard G. Sowell, age 21, from Florida, Palm Beach county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Friday, July 7, 1944
Death details: On June 15, 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Sergeant Richard G. Sowell, missing from World War II. Sergeant Sowell, who entered the U.S. Army from Florida, was a member of 295th Joint Assault Signal Company, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 106th Infantry Regiment. His unit participated in the battle for the island Saipan, part of a larger operation to secure the Mariana Islands. SGT Sowell was a spotter for his signal company at Hill 721 on Saipan, when on July 6, the hill came under heavy attack by Japanese forces. On the morning of July 7, the commanding officer of 106th Infantry reported that SGT Sowell was killed in this overnight action. The active battlefield prevented the recovery of his body at the time, and recovery efforts on Saipan conducted immediately after the war were unable to locate his remains. In 1949, an ordnance officer with the U.S. Army Garrison Force on Saipan discovered remains in a fox hole believed to be those of an American service member. The remains were transported to the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy mortuary on Saipan and were eventually transferred to the Central Identification Laboratory (now DPAA) in Hawaii where they were designated “Unknown X-29 [Isolated Burial] Saipan.” Due to insufficient evidence, the remains were temporarily stored as “unknowns” at Schofield Mausoleum #2, Hawaii, and in 1949, were interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Hawaii. In 2015, these remains were accessioned to the DPAA lab in Hawaii, and forensic analysts identified them as those of SGT Sowell.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com