About two years ago, when U.S. military officials asked Jersey City resident Karol Krychkowski if she would be willing to submit her DNA for testing, she turned them down.
The military was conducting a study of the remains of unidentified World War II soldiers in the Netherlands. Researchers had found a set of remains they believed to be Krychkowski’s relative, but they needed confirmation.
“I would not do it at that time, for whatever reason,” Krychkowski said. “I didn’t want the government to have my DNA. I don’t know.”
Last December, Krychkowski changed her mind and sent in a swab of DNA. That contribution led to a remarkable discovery: the identification of Stephen C. Mason, a Jersey City soldier reported missing in action 77 years ago.
Mason, who was 21 when he died in 1944, was a U.S. Army private in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
The Jersey City soldier never returned from a patrol mission during Operation Market Garden, a massive Allied offensive near the town of Beek in the Netherlands. (The operation later inspired the 1977 movie “A Bridge Too Far.”)
That offensive, which had the goal of securing bridges near the border with Nazi Germany, was ultimately a failure that cost the lives of over 10,000 Allied soldiers. Among them was Mason, who was awarded the Silver Star after his death.
Krychkowski had never met her “Uncle Steve” — his sister, her mother, was about five years younger — but she had heard about him from her grandmother.
Those memories prompted her to change her mind about the DNA, she said. “Because she kissed her son goodbye when he was 19 and never saw him again,” she said.
In 2015, historians with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) began to analyze remains from the Market Garden operation, according to a Sept. 1 DPAA press release.
Officials had located the remains of an unidentified person, labeled X-3323 Neuville, a possible match for Mason. Researchers sent X-3323′s remains to the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where DPAA scientists determined that they were, in fact, Mason.
The Jersey City soldier was identified by scientists who used “dental and anthropological analysis,” and “circumstantial evidence,” according to the press release as well as Krychkowski’s DNA, according to the press release.
Currently, Mason’s name is inscribed in the Netherlands American Cemetery, which records the names of Americans missing in action during the war. After the identification of his remains, Mason is slated for burial in North Arlington, where other family members are buried.
A date has not yet been set, but Krychkowski said her uncle will have a full military funeral.
“I was so happy,” she said. “This is not going to be a solemn occasion. It’s going to be a happy occasion.”
“I’m bringing him home,” she added.
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77 years later, a fallen New Jersey soldier is coming home - NJ.com
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