Virginia soldier killed during D-Day invasion accounted for more than 80 years later
CBSN
A soldier from Virginia who died on D-Day has been accounted for 81 years after he was killed, officials said in a news release.
U.S. Army Sgt. Ivor D. Thornton, 34, landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy with Company H, 2nd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, 29th Infantry Division as part of the second wave of the invasion, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. D-Day, or Operation Overlord, was a massive Allied invasion of northern France by air and sea during World War II. The operation, on June 6, 1944, marked the beginning of the liberation of Europe from Hitler's rule.
The company disembarked from their landing craft at around 7 a.m. Fellow soldiers observed Thornton wading ashore, but he was not seen again after that, the DPAA said. The day after the invasion, Thornton's unit searched for him, but he was not found. He was officially listed as missing in action. His name was engraved on the Walls of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
