Twins reunited 74 years after deaths

For decades, he was known only as Unknown X-9352 at a Second World War American cemetery in Belgium where he was interred.

Yesterday, the soldier would have his identity recovered — and be reunited with his twin brother in Normandy, where the two Navy men died together when their ship shattered on an underwater mine while trying to reach the bloodsoaked D-Day beaches.

Julius Heinrich Otto “Henry” Pieper and Ludwig Julius Wilhelm “Louie” Pieper, two 19-year-olds from Esmond, South Dakota, were to rest in peace side-by-side by day’s end yesterday at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France, 74 years after their deaths on June 19, 1944.

While Louie’s body was soon found, identified and laid to rest, the remains of Julius were only recovered in 1961 by French salvage divers and not identified until 2017.

Only twins in the graves

They will be the 45th pair of brothers at the cemetery, three of them memorialised on the Walls of the Missing. But the Piepers will be the only set of twins among the more than 9,380 graves, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Julius, radioman second class like his brother, is being buried with full military honours at the cemetery, an immaculate field of crosses and stars of David. The site overlooks the English Channel and Omaha Beach, the bloodiest of the Normandy landing beaches of Operation Overlord, the first step in breaching Hitler’s stranglehold on France and Europe. Family members will be in attendance.

The story of how the twins died and were being reunited reflects the daily courage of troops on a mission to save the world from a Nazi conquest, and the tenacity of today’s living to ensure that no soldier goes unaccounted for.