FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 28, 2025) – Gov. Andy Beshear recognizes the sacrifice of a Kentucky soldier who was killed during World War II but who was not accounted for until Sept. 13, 2024, and whose family was not fully briefed on the identification until recently.
“We owe a debt to those who are working so diligently to identify our unknown heroes from past wars,” said Gov. Beshear. “While it is heartbreaking to learn about the loss of this soldier in the Second World War, it is also healing to be able to finally bring him home.”
U.S. Army Pfc. Kenneth D. Burgess, 29, of Central City, Kentucky, was assigned to Company B, 4th Ranger Battalion, “Darby’s Rangers,” in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II in September 1943. He participated in Operation Avalanche, the amphibious invasion of Italy near Salerno, and engaged in fighting near the Chiunzi Pass on the Sorrento Peninsula. On Sept. 25, Burgess was missing in action following a patrol toward the village of Sala, Italy. His body was not recovered, and German forces never reported him a prisoner of war. The War Department declared him non-recoverable on May 10, 1948.
Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS), Army Quartermaster Corps, was the organization tasked with recovering missing American personnel in the Mediterranean Theater. In 1947, AGRS investigators recovered remains from a cemetery in the village of San Nicola. These remains were designated as X-152. The AGRS were unable to associate X-152 with nearby casualties, and the remains were interred at U.S. Military Cemetery, Nettuno, which is now Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.
In 2019, while studying unresolved American losses in Operation Avalanche, a historian with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, compiled unit records, company morning reports and grave registration records that indicated Burgess was likely lost in the vicinity of the X-152 recovery location. Members from the Department of Defense and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) disinterred the remains in March 2022 and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for identification.
To identify Burgess’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and circumstantial analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Burgess’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, an ABMC site in Nettuno, Italy, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.
“Darby’s Rangers” were America’s first elite special operations units, initially consisting of volunteers trained by the British Commandos. Even today, these units’ exploits during WWII exemplify the standard for training and warfighting for modern U.S. Army Rangers. Pfc. Kenneth Burgess was one of those heroes and trailblazers.
Burgess will be buried in Central City, Kentucky, in May 2025.
Gov. Beshear will order flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Burgess on the day of interment.