On Wednesday, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office release the names of two US Army servicemen who served in the Korean War.
Army Cpl. Francis J. Reimer, 19, of St. Cloud, Minn., will be buried Sept. 8, in his hometown. In late November 1950, Reimer and elements of the 31st Regimental Combat Team, know as the "Task Force Faith," were advancing along the eastern banks of the Chosin Reservoir, in North Korea. After coming under attack, they began a fighting withdrawal to positions near Hagaru-ri, south of the reservoir. During this withdrawal, Reimer went missing.
Between 1991 and 1994, North Korea gave the United States 208 boxes of remains believed to contain the remains of 200-400 U.S. service members. North Korean documents, turned over with some of the boxes, indicates that some of the human remains were recovered from the area Reimer was last seen.
Army Master Sgt. Clifford L. Ryan, 27, of Muscatine, Iowa, will be buried Sept. 8 in Riverside, Calif. On Nov. 1, 1950, Ryan's unit, the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Calvary Division, occupied a defensive position along the Kuryong River, near Unsan, North Korea. Chinese units attacked the area and forced a withdrawal. Almost 600 men, including Ryan, were reported missing or killed in action following the battle.
In 2000, a joint U.S.-Democratic People's Republic of Korea team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated a mass grave discovered earlier in Unsan County, south of the area known as "Camel's Head." Human remains, of at least five individuals, and U.S. military uniforms were recovered but they were unable to be identified given the technology of the time.
