COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — For decades, he was known only as Unknown X-9352 at a World War II American cemetery in Belgium where he was interred.
On Tuesday, the American soldier would have his identity recovered — and be reunited with his twin brother in Normandy, where the two Navy men died together when their ship shattered on an underwater mine while trying to reach the blood-soaked D-Day beaches.
Julius Heinrich Otto “Henry” Pieper and Ludwig Julius Wilhelm “Louie” Pieper, two 19-year-olds from Esmond, South Dakota, will rest in peace side-by-side by day’s end in France, 74 years after their deaths on June 19, 1944.
While Louie’s body was soon found, identified and laid to rest, the remains of Julius were only recovered in 1961 by French salvage divers and not identified until 2017.