U.S. Army Sgt. Bernard J. Sweeney Jr., who was killed in action Dec. 16, 1944 and remained unaccounted for until his remains were identified more than 76 years later, was laid to rest in Calverton National Cemetery today.
His flag-draped casket was borne by a horse-drawn carriage to the funeral home from Alexander-Rothwell Funeral Home in Wading River. A riderless horse followed behind the carriage in the solemn procession. Fire trucks lined a portion of the route, their ladders extended to support massive American flags draped over Route 25.
Veterans, police, firefighters, and EMS and a host of public officials joined the procession from the funeral home to the cemetery where a funeral service with full military honors was held.
Today’s funeral was “a service of gratitude, prestige and prayers of thanks to a soldier who gave his life so that others may live,” said Riverhead Council Member Ken Rothwell, owner of Alexander-Rothwell Funeral Home, which provided the funeral for the fallen soldier.
Sweeney, of Waterbury, Connecticut, was just 22 years old when he was killed in action in Germany. His remains were not recovered or identified following the war. He was declared “non-recoverable” in November 1951, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Sweeney was accounted for on June 14, 2021 after a historian at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency determined that one set of unidentified remains recovered from a minefield north of Kleinhau, Germany in 1946 possibly belonged to Sweeney. The remains had been buried in 1950 in Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. They were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, for identification. There, his remains were identified using dental and anthropological analysis, mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA analysis and circumstantial evidence according to DPAA.
Sweeney entered the U.S. Army in New York City on Nov. 27, 1942 and served in Company I, 330th Infantry Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division, in the European Theater during the Second World War.
Sweeney’s known relatives have since passed away, leaving no immediate family or next of kin, Rothwell said.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.
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