From left, Frank Herman's daughter, Gloria Hoffman; his wife, Susan Herman, 96; and his daughter, Joni Horner, show a picture of the World War II combat veteran at Herman's home. He died in 2009.

It took nearly 76 years, but one of Frank Herman's dog tags are back in the hands of his family.

The Butler County native lost his dog tags when, as a private in the U.S. Army's 39th Infantry Regiment, he fought his way across France, Germany and Czechoslovakia during World War II.

After the war, he returned to Butler, married, had four children and worked for Armco until his retirement in 1983. He didn't share much about his military service with his family.His daughter, Gloria Hoffman of Butler, said her father kept two Purple Hearts with his other military medals, but would never tell them where and how he was wounded.“He did not talk about the war, maybe in his later years,” Hoffman said.“I only remember him saying in his last years, 'I lost my dog tags.' He never knew where he lost them or anything.”His granddaughter, Megan Hoffman of Orlando, Fla., who grew up in her grandparents' house, said, “He lost his dog tags in the war, and he was sad about that.”One of his daughters, Jeanne Sheffer, gave him replacement dog tags before he died in 2009.But the real tags, or at least one of them, surfaced unexpectedly this year through an unlikely set of circumstances.

In June 2019, Nathan Coney of Washington, Ind., which is about two hours south of Indianapolis, arrived in Brest, France, as part of a study abroad program.Brest is a port city in the Brittany region that was almost destroyed in 1944 after the D-Day landings in nearby Normandy.Coney, who's now a freshman French major at Indiana University, stayed with a host, Marion Pitty.Coney said his host told him a story about her father, Armand Pitty, who was with French forces fighting the Nazis.“Her father had American dog tags. He found them in Germany and brought them back to France,” Coney said.Because he could not read English and the name on the tag was Herman, he originally thought it belonged to a German.After showing it to his family, Armand Pitty stowed Herman's dog tag away in a box of his war memorabilia.And there it remained until last summer when Coney arrived.

Marion Pitty said her brother did some research in the 1980s and believed that the dog tag belonged to an American.Coney said, “We were talking about the history of the house because the Germans occupied her house at one point in the war.“She pulled out this box. I saw the dog tags and realized they were American,” Coney said.Pitty gave the American student the dog tag, and it traveled with him back to Indiana.That's where Coney's mother, Debbie Goodwin, started to do some sleuthing to find the tag's rightful owner.“Here's what's funny. When he first got home, he had commented on the dog tags. He didn't tell me he had them,” Goodwin said.When that fact came out, Goodwin took the tag to the Veterans Affairs office in Daviess County, Ind.“We were just trying to track it down. The VA helped really put it together,” Goodwin said.

The next step was going to a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Indianapolis, which put them in touch with VFW Post 249, 429 W. Jefferson St. in Butler.“I talked to them and they said, 'We've got him here as a lifetime member, and we're messaging the Herman family,'” Goodwin said.Jeff Finger of the Butler VFW post said, “I was sitting right there when the phone rang, and I ran with it.”Singer said records showed Frank Herman was a life member of Post 249, but there was very little paperwork to show where his family was.“Without the paperwork, I put it on Facebook to see if anybody knew of Frank Herman's family,” Singer said.The Facebook posting got Megan Hoffman's attention.“I responded back that this was my grandfather and that I was happy to talk,” she said.Gloria Hoffman said, “(Megan) talked to the family in Indiana and said, 'You better talk to them.'”After some back and forth, Debbie Goodwin mailed the tag to Gloria Hoffman.Gloria Hoffman said, “Our first initial thought was it's amazing, it's crazy, that after all these years that someone found them over in Europe.”

Now that the dog tag has been reunited with Frank Herman's descendants, the family plans to keep it close.His daughter said the family has a display of her dad's medals and will probably add the dog tag to that.The family plans to keep in touch with Goodwin and her son, but a face-to-face meeting is not possible with the COVID-19 pandemic.Frank's wife and Gloria's mother, Susan Herman, is 96, and her daughter doesn't want to take any chances with her health.Goodwin and her son are happy that they were able to reunite the dog tag with the family of its owner.“They are American pieces of history and to have them reunited with his family, for me that is really cool,” Coney said.

Frank Herman, left, served in Europe during World War II, fighting in four major battles and receiving two Purple Hearts. He lost his dog tags during the war. French soldier Armand Pitty, right, found a tag in Germany during the war and brought it back to France. That bit of history was recently returned to Herman's family.

Photograph of the French solider who found Frank Herman's dog tag.

Frank Herman of Butler earned two Purple Hearts during his service in World War II but his daughter Gloria Hoffman said he would never talk about where and how he was wounded.

Frank Herman served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.

The family of Frank Herman, who served in World War II, has a collection of medals and photographs and soon will add part of Herman's long-lost dog tags to the display.