An illustration of U.S. Navy Reserve Seaman 2nd Class Jerome M. Mullaney and a Purple Heart medal. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

An 18-year-old Navy seaman who was killed aboard a U.S. destroyer during World War II has been accounted for more than 80 years after his death, military officials said Tuesday.

U.S. Navy Reserve Seaman 2nd Class Jerome M. Mullaney, 18, was assigned to the destroyer USS Glennon in the summer of 1944, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. The Glennon participated in D-Day on June 6, 1944. Two days after the invasion, it struck an underwater mine off the coast of France. The ship became trapped and could not be towed to safety before it was struck by a German artillery barrage on June 10.

The ship sank after being hit by the German barrage. Mullaney and 24 other sailors were recorded as missing. Mullaney was declared non-recoverable in May 1949, just under five years after the ship's sinking. His name was recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery in England. He was awarded the Purple Heart, according to an obituary published in late August.

After World War II ended in 1945, the American Graves Registration Command began efforts to recover missing American service members who had died during in combat. The agency conducted dozens of searches off France's coast, the DPAA said. By 1951, the agency had identified the remains of five sailors from the USS Glennon.

In 1957, salvagers in St. Marie du Mont, France pulled pieces of the USS Glennon to shore. The pieces were broken down for scrap. A local resident found human remains in a large section of wreckage from the front portion of the ship, the DPAA said. American officials from the Army mausoleum in Frankfurt, Germany, then took possession of the remains and designated them as X-9296. Efforts to identify the remains failed, and they were interred at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium in March 1959.

In 2021, DPAA historians began new efforts to account for the sailors who died aboard the USS Glennon. In August 2022, the X-9296 remains were exhumed from the Belgian cemetery and transferred to the DPAA's laboratory. Research including dental and anthropological analysis, as well as mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA analysis, identified the remains as Mullaney's in March 2025.

Mullaney's obituary said he was one of 10 children. All of his siblings have died, but he has several surviving nieces, nephews and cousins. The obituary said his funeral would be held in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was set to be buried near his parents, the obituary said.

A rosette will also be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing to indicate he has been accounted for, the DPAA said.

"This will bring closure for our family," Mullaney's niece, Mary Louise Brambilla, told the military publication Stars and Stripes. "He will finally be coming home."


The USS Glennon. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

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