Remains of Wisconsin post’s namesake identified after 79 years.
American Legion Post 355 in Grafton, Wis., received its initial charter in 1933 and took as its namesake Cpl. Fred Rose, a local World War I soldier who died of pneumonia in England in September 1918 and was buried there. In 1946 Post 355 renamed itself Rose-Harms to honor Lt. Roy Harms, the first Grafton resident to die in World War II, who perished in an August 1943 bombing raid of refineries near Ploiești, Romania, as a member of the Army Air Corps. But unlike Rose, for decades the Harms family – and Grafton – lacked closure through final identification of Harms’ remains.
According to past Department of Wisconsin Commander Al Richards, a member of Post 355, “Due to the massive destruction and the number of dead, very few remains from the battle were identified. The local Romanians buried what remains they could recover. It wasn’t until after the war that many unidentified remains were sent to the Ardennes American Cemetery near Liège, Belgium.”
Harms’ name was listed on the Wall of Honor at the Florence American Cemetery in Italy, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) exhumed and tested unidentified remains at Ardennes. With the help of a DNA sample from Harms’ only surviving sister, the DPAA informed the Harms family last August that an identification had been made. Laura Harms Murphy had passed away in 2020 at 99 but had expressed a wish that her brother’s remains be returned to Grafton.
Harms was not just a name on Post 355’s wall. Richards remembers, “At my first meeting, LeRoy Paulin was elected post commander. Like many other members at the time, LeRoy was a World War II veteran. He was also a friend of Roy Harms and his family. LeRoy kept in touch with the family even when they started to move away from Grafton. He was responsible for gathering information and pictures of Lt. Harms’ crew and creating a display at the post. Unfortunately, LeRoy, like most of our World War II veterans, is no longer with us. Our current post commander, Ken Kasprzak, has done a good job of picking up the torch and keeping in touch with the surviving Harms family members, especially Roy’s sister, who was very supportive of our post. Other family members have come back and visited the post in the past.”
Roy Harms’ homecoming is set for May 6 at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Grafton. He will be interred alongside his parents at a noon ceremony with full military honors. Post 355 will participate in the ceremony and host an open house afterwards.
- Honor & Remembrance