A fallen D-Day soldier is 'finally home' in Houston after 81 years thanks to new DNA analysis

With one exception, no one in Nicholas Hartman’s family thought he would ever come home again. He went to war and became another 20-year-old American soldier killed on D-Day.

Hartman was never really accounted for, recorded as “unidentified” along with three U.S. Army brothers. Instead of returning to his native Houston, he was interred in France at the makeshift cemetery set up as the Allies advanced into France.

News of his death came back to Houston, but he didn’t. His mother, Nanny Hartman, held onto hope he was still alive, and that her son would someday walk up the street. She’d go to the door to look, or amble to the mailbox religiously in search of a letter. He was her youngest, with two older brothers and a sister.

Decades passed, with few in the family talking about Hartman much, his nephew Norman Graves said. His maternal grandmother – Hartman’s mother – deteriorated, and the family worried she’d walk off, confused, looking for her youngest boy who never returned or heading to the old mailbox at the end of the street.

“She was always looking for her son,” Graves said.

His mother, his brothers and his sister have since all died.

“I do not believe there is anybody alive who ever talked to him,” Hartman’s niece, Phyllis Struckmeyer, 83, said of the family.

She barely missed her chance, being born shortly after he shipped off. All she’s lived with for as long as she can remember are stories about an uncle who went to war and never came back.

But, finally, Nicolas Hartman is home.

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‘It hurt too much to talk about’

Who Hartman was, beyond an uncle who died in the war, was lost to the next generation of the family.

“This is just my opinion, but I think it hurt too much to talk about,” Graves said of why relatives seldom spoke of him.

As a result, gaps remain in the family’s memories. Though a city kid, growing up in Houston’s East End, he enjoyed spending time hunting and fishing.

At 16, he delivered the Houston Chronicle in the Ship Channel area, while attending Edison School, now Edison Middle School.

“I am using the money I earn on my route to help my mother take care of the household expenses and to pay for clothing and other needed things,” he said for a profile in the Chronicle about his job. “After I get through school, I would like to go into some kind of business.”

He never got the chance. With the country at war, Hartman began working at the Houston Shipbuilding Company. At 18, he married Earline Berts, and the young couple moved to Port Street, in Denver Harbor.

A short time later, he headed to England and to war as a member of the medical corps.

“,”text_visual_type”:””,”text_visual”:””,”text_visual_alt”:”A sketch of Pfc. Nicolas Hartman from his service identification photo.”,”text_video_poster”:””,”text_visual_position”:””,”text_position”:”center”,”text_visual_credit”:””,”background_visual_type”:”Image (URL)”,”background_visual”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/Hartman_Big%20portrait.png”,”background_visual_mobile”:””,”background_alt”:”This is a strapping portrait of Hartman as a young soldier.”,”background_format”:”full”,”background_crop”:”contain”,”background_credit”:””,”background_video_poster”:””},{“header_text”:””,”text”:”

Early casualty in an epic invasion

Hartman didn’t even make it to Omaha Beach. Along with 200 others, he was aboard LCI-92, a large landing craft aimed at the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944, as part of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

The ship was built in Orange – a 90-minute drive from Hartman’s home.

“,”text_visual_type”:””,”text_visual”:””,”text_visual_alt”:”The front page of the Houston Chronicle from June 7, 1944.”,”text_video_poster”:””,”text_visual_position”:””,”text_position”:”center”,”text_visual_credit”:””,”background_visual_type”:”Image (URL)”,”background_visual”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/hartman-dday-cover.jpg”,”background_visual_mobile”:””,”background_alt”:”And here we have a newspaper. Newspaper a day keeps the… doctor away?”,”background_format”:”full”,”background_crop”:”contain”,”background_credit”:””,”background_video_poster”:””},{“header_text”:””,”text”:”

That morning, it was on approach to Dog White Beach, a kilometer-wide segment of Omaha Beach where troops planned to make one of four organized assaults on German resistance and gun bunkers. Once LCI-92 hit the beach, the troops aboard would rush inland while the ship’s crew would stay back.

A half-hour earlier, another transport had landed, according to later troop accounts. It was sitting in flames on the surf. The crew on LCI-92 intended to use the smoke from the flaming boat to conceal its own approach.

“At (8:10 a.m.) she passed through the first row of obstacles and cleared the outer three rows successfully,” according to an article in the July 1952 issue of Coast Guard Magazine. “When apparently clear, however, a terrific explosion on the port side rocked the ship, setting the No. 1 troop compartment in flames and spraying the entire forward deck with burning fuel.”

“,”text_visual_type”:””,”text_visual”:””,”text_visual_alt”:”A map of the Normandy landing of Allied forces on June 4, 1944. Americans landed at Utah and Omaha beaches to the west while British troops landed at Gold and Sword beaches to the east.”,”text_video_poster”:””,”text_visual_position”:””,”text_position”:”center”,”text_visual_credit”:””,”background_visual_type”:”Image (URL)”,”background_visual”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/hartman-normandy_desktop.jpg”,”background_visual_mobile”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/hartman-normandy_mobile.jpg”,”background_alt”:”And the Normandy invasion map. Maps are great. Love a map.”,”background_format”:”full”,”background_crop”:”contain”,”background_credit”:””,”background_video_poster”:””},{“header_text”:””,”text”:”

Later assessments showed LCI-92 had hit an underwater mine approaching the beach, setting off the explosion and fire that killed everyone in the forward troop component, including Hartman.

“Due to the urgency of the situation, it was impossible for others to search for survivors,” the military said in a summary of his service. “Hartman’s remains were not accounted for after the war.”

A world away, or exactly 4,875 miles of it, his mother held onto impossible hope.

“She didn’t accept the announcement that he was dead because they never gave her a body,” Graves said.

\n”,”text_visual_type”:””,”text_visual”:””,”text_visual_alt”:”A schematic of LCI-92, the troop transport carrying Nicolas Hartman.”,”text_video_poster”:””,”text_visual_position”:””,”text_position”:”center”,”text_visual_credit”:””,”background_visual_type”:”Image (URL)”,”background_visual”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/Hartman_ship.png”,”background_visual_mobile”:””,”background_alt”:”Ken loves to illustrate ships. I bet this assignment was really fulfilling for him.”,”background_format”:”full”,”background_crop”:”contain”,”background_credit”:””,”background_video_poster”:””},{“header_text”:””,”text”:”

Technology catches up after 75 years

Hartman was never considered missing, so much as the Army could not locate him. But they did not stop trying, and eventually technology helped them out.

Four days after the battle, members of a medical company examined the wreckage as part of their search for survivors. They found remains on the ship that were collected and buried in the U.S. cemetery established in St. Laurent-sur-Mer.

By 1946, with the war over and Europe rebuilding, the registration command dug up and analyzed the remains. They were able to segregate the remains as those of four people. Each was then reburied in the Normandy American Cemetery, where nearly 9,400 soldiers are laid to rest.

There Hartman’s remains, labeled X-83, laid unnamed for 55 years.

Over time, technology caught up with the tragedy. New ways of identifying people from hairs and small amounts of remains have made it easier to make a match. In June and August of 2021, the four identified soldiers from LCI-92 were exhumed and taken to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratory.

The agency operates three labs – two in Hawaii and one in Nebraska – that combined are the largest skeletal identification lab in the world, processing many of the 81,000 unaccounted for American soldiers. The vast majority of those unidentified, nearly 72,000, are from WWII.

“,”text_visual_type”:””,”text_visual”:””,”text_visual_alt”:”A sketch of Pfc. Nicolas Hartman as a teenager, from a family photo.”,”text_video_poster”:””,”text_visual_position”:””,”text_position”:”center”,”text_visual_credit”:””,”background_visual_type”:”Image (URL)”,”background_visual”:”https://files.sfchronicle.com/tx-data/2025/hc-hartman/hartman-young.jpg”,”background_visual_mobile”:””,”background_alt”:”Young man Hartman! Just young lad.”,”background_format”:”full”,”background_crop”:”contain”,”background_credit”:””,”background_video_poster”:””},{“header_text”:””,”text”:”

Key to a connection is a relative for DNA comparison. Sons and daughters carry DNA markers similar to those of their parents. So do nieces and nephews, even those Hartman never met.

“When they called and said they wanted to do swabs, I was like ‘what-what,'” Graves said.

Both he and his sister provided a sample, twirling a cotton swab inside their cheek and mailing it back in a plastic little vial. So did their mother, shortly before she died in 2022 at 101. They never got their hopes up.

“That was the end of it for us,” Graves said. “Everybody from back then was gone; it was like everyone had come to terms with it.”

Then the call came, shocking the family.

“They are beside themselves,” Graves said. “Ecstatic. This is big news to us.”

So Hartmans, Graveses and their kin will soon gather to bury a man they never met back in a city he called home before war took him away. He’ll be laid to rest in Houston on Oct. 20 – on what would be his sister’s 105 birthday and two days before he would have turned 102.

“I didn’t even realize that until later on,” Struckmeyer said.

It’s a homecoming, albeit a few miles short.

Graves and other relatives wanted to lay Hartman to rest where fate and family would have preferred – right next to his mother in a small South Houston cemetery.

That did not work out, however, so he now will join other fallen service members in Houston National Cemetery. Still, Graves said, it is meaningful for a family that never got to know him.

“He’s coming home,” he said. “That’s what really matters.”

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This article originally published at A fallen D-Day soldier is ‘finally home’ in Houston after 81 years thanks to new DNA analysis.

A fallen D-Day soldier is ‘finally home’ in Houston after 81 years thanks to new DNA analysis

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