U.S. Army Private Wing O. Hom, a Chinese American World War II soldier from New York City, is finally coming home.
Hom, a member of Company B, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division, went missing in February 1944 during a fierce battle near the town of Cisterna di Latina, Italy. He was only 20 years old at the time of his disappearance. Despite efforts to locate him, his body remained unrecovered, and he was never reported as a prisoner of war. Hom was declared deceased in February 1945.
In 2021, a set of remains, initially unidentified and found near the hamlet of Ponte Rotto, was laid to rest at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. These remains were exhumed in 2021 and sent for analysis. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) recently announced that those remains were that of Hom’s, using advanced anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Ken Hom, a nephew of Wing Hom, mentioned his uncle in a Memorial Day tribute on Instagram. The Army reached out to him shortly after, and that led to Hom’s remains being identified.
Hom’s remains are set to be interred in Brooklyn, New York, on Oct. 11.