After Eight Decades, A Fallen Hero Comes Home
The long-awaited homecoming of a American World War II soldier has finally taken place, more than eighty years after he went missing in action. The remains of US Army Private Alfred Thomas Langevin, positively identified in July 2025, arrived in his hometown of Weymouth, Massachusetts, on Saturday morning.
The Soldier's Story and Ultimate Sacrifice
Before answering his nation's call, the 29-year-old Langevin worked as a grocery store manager. He enlisted in the US Army and found himself thrust into some of the most intense combat operations of the entire war. In 1944, while conducting a patrol in a German forest during the fight against the Axis powers, Private Langevin went missing.
His obituary notes that the precise circumstances of his death remain unclear, but it is believed he was killed in his defensive position during a heavy artillery bombardment. A year after his deployment, he was officially declared dead, though authorities had never discovered what happened to him.
The Long Road to Identification
For years, efforts by American teams to locate his remains were consistently thwarted by a combination of treacherous terrain, active landmines, and the general chaos left in the war's wake. With no body to bury, his name was inscribed on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten as a permanent tribute to his sacrifice.
The breakthrough came in June 2021, when a renewed identification effort led by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the American Battle Monuments Commission uncovered a set of remains from the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. These remains, known only by the designation "X-2756", were later positively identified as Private Langevin after his nephew provided a DNA sample that resulted in a familial match.
A Community's Final Salute
On Saturday, Langevin was received with a dignified transport from Boston's Logan International Airport to the Keohane Funeral Home. The town of Weymouth announced that calling hours would be held from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday at Weymouth Town Hall, where the public could pay their respects to the soldier lying in honour.
A funeral procession and burial with full military honours is scheduled for Monday. The procession will depart from the funeral home at 10 a.m., travel through Weymouth—including Jackson Square, where Langevin was born and raised—and conclude at Fairmount Cemetery, where he will be laid to rest next to his sister, Irene.
Private Langevin is survived by his nephew, Patrick, and the extended Langevin family. He left behind a wife, Helen F. Langevin, and a daughter, Mary, who was merely a toddler when he was deployed.
