World War II soldier to be buried in Central City
A young soldier is finally returning to Kentucky soil more than 80 years after he was declared missing in action.
CENTRAL CITY, Ky. (WBKO) - A Kentucky soldier is set to be laid to rest in his hometown.
The remains of U.S. Army Pfc. Kenneth D. Burgess, a soldier missing in action during World War II, will be interred May 7 at Central City’s Rose Hill Cemetery, according to a news release.
Tuckers Funeral Home is set to perform graveside services preceding Burgess’s interment.
“When you have someone that goes and makes the ultimate sacrifice for you, for me, for everybody in this country, all I, and we would want to do is to honor that loved one to the utmost ability that we were capable of,” said Coby Joe Carver, a worker at Tuckers Funeral Home.
Burgess was reported missing in action on September 25, 1943, at age 29, following a patrol toward the village of Sala, Italy, during Operation Avalanche.
Burgess was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on September 13, 2024, after his remains were exhumed in March 2022 from the U.S. Military Cemetery, Nettuno—now Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Rome, Italy—for laboratory analysis and identification.
His remains were among a group that went unidentified for decades.
Following extensive lab analysis, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency was able to identify Burgess.
“People expect it to be faster than it can reasonably go,” said Dr. Terrie Brown, the laboratory manager at DPAA. “Every single one of them takes time, and we take the time to properly identify people.”
To learn more about Pfc. Burgess, click here.
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