80 years after being killed, WWII soldier Leroy Cloud to be buried Saturday in Taylor

When U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Leroy Cloud of Thrall was killed in 1944 during a World War II battle in France, his body was never recovered. Last year, unidentified remains initially buried in a French cemetery were proven to be his, authorities announced.

On Saturday, 80 years after his death, Cloud will be buried in Taylor, near where his parents and brother are also interred, said his great nephew.

"He was an athlete and well-liked and everybody loved him," said JB Cloud of Abilene, who has his own syndicated radio music show called "Red Dirt Proud." Cloud said he was born after his great-uncle died but learned about him from Leroy Cloud's parents, who were JB Cloud's great-grandparents.

The Army sergeant grew up in Thrall and graduated from Thrall High School before he joined the military in 1941, said JB Cloud. "I've got a picture of him with his tank crew and he's in the center with a cigar in his mouth, and you can tell he's the life of the party," he said.

Leroy Cloud had brown hair and blue eyes and was 5 feet 7 inches tall, according to Army records. An old newspaper clipping from his Army personnel file said Cloud was "outstanding in football" in high school and did county road work before joining the military.

His parents, Stephen Ross Cloud and Millie Cloud, were farmers, said JB Cloud.

They tried to find his remains for years after he was reported missing at age 24, JB Cloud said. "They didn't know if he was alive or if he was blinded or maimed," he said. "As parents, they were grasping for straws for every little sliver of hope, and they did that until the day they died."

Leroy Cloud was assigned to Company A, 744th Tank Battalion, as a crew member of an M5A1 Stuart light tank in July 1944, according to a news release from the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

"His unit was engaged in battle with German forces at Saint-Germain-d’Elle, France, on July 26, 1944, when his tank was struck by an enemy shoulder-fired rocket," the release said. It said two crewmembers were able to escape the vehicle, but Cloud and another soldier were never seen or heard from again.

Surviving crewmembers were unable to recover his body because of strong enemy artillery fire and intense combat, the release said.

Four days after Cloud's tank was struck, authorities found two sets of unidentifiable remains in the area, the release said. It said the remains were buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in France. The Army declared Cloud dead in August 1944, according to the release.

A condolence letter sent to Cloud's mother by his company's commander in November 1944 said Cloud "executed the duties of a non-commissioned officer in a superb manner."

"His first thoughts were of his men who had the utmost confidence in his ability as their leader," said the letter contained in Cloud's personnel file. "He had a multitude of friends among the officers and the enlisted men of the entire battalion."

The letter also said Cloud's body was "evacuated" and buried in an American cemetery, but the location could not be disclosed until a later date.

But four years later, Leroy Cloud's father sent a letter to the Army that said: "We have never received any information as to where he was buried, and we would like very much to know this as we would like to have him brought back."

"Nearly four years is a long time to wait for something like this and we want to know as soon as you could possibly give us this information," said the letter, which also was contained in the soldier's personnel file.

The Army sent letters to surviving members of Cloud's battalion asking them for details about his death, according to other letters in Cloud's file. One of the members said Cloud's tank caught fire after it was hit. None of the people who responded could say what happened to his body.

In a 1950 letter that an Army colonel sent to Cloud's parents, they were told that efforts to correlate their son's records with remains found in unknown soldiers' graves had been futile and that Cloud's remains were "unrecoverable."

But the situation began to change in 2018 when a historian from the MIA Accounting Agency was studying unresolved American losses in the Saint-Germain-d’Elle area, according to an agency news release. The historian determined a tank recovered from the area belonged to the company that Leroy Cloud was assigned to, it said.

The release said that correlation led officials to exhume the two unidentified sets of remains found four days after Cloud's tank was struck and buried in the Normandy American Cemetery. The remains were then sent to the agency's laboratory in the United States for analysis and identification.

Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence, to identify Leroy Cloud, the release said. It said they also found out in 2023 that DNA they gathered from JB Cloud matched the remains, according to the release.

JB Cloud said authorities told him about the DNA match in December. "I was excited for the closure, but sad," he said.

Carolyn Shinn, whose stepfather was Leroy Cloud's brother, also was present when the military told JB Cloud about the DNA match.

"I was delighted and very surprised and so thankful they would continue to try to find his remains,' she said. "It just makes me proud of my country to think they did that."

"I pray that all veterans can be honored by knowing the government and our country has not forgotten them," Shinn said.

JB Cloud said the funeral at 2 p.m. Saturday at 1101 E. Fourth St. at the Taylor City Cemetery is open to the public. "Everybody is welcome to come salute a hero."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 80 years later, WWII soldier Leroy Cloud to be buried in Taylor, Texas