Korean War soldier from Vermillion County to be interred at Arlington
Oct. 7—The remains of a soldier from Vermillion County, killed during the Korean War, will be interred Oct. 19, in Arlington National Cemetery.
Graveside services for Army Sgt. 1st Class James A. Coleman will be performed by Everly-Wheatley Funerals and Cremation, Alexandria, preceding the interment, according to a news release Thursday from the U.S. Army in Fort Knox, Ky.
A native of Hillsdale, Indiana, Coleman was a member of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action April 25, 1951, while fighting Chinese Communist Forces near the Hwach-on Reservoir in the modern-day Republic of Korea (ROK), South Korea.
His status was changed to killed in action Oct. 3, 1952, based on eyewitness accounts from a Soldier in a neighboring foxhole. Coleman's body was unable to be recovered due to the fighting.
He was just 22 years old.
The American Graves Registration Service Group, responsible for recovering, identifying, and repatriating those lost during the Korean War, recovered two sets of remains near the village of Tumun-gol May 18, 1953. One set, reported to have been a Korean, was returned to the ROK. The other set of remains, designated X-5960 Tanggok, could not be identified and was buried in the United Nations Military Cemetery Tanggok.
After the end of fighting in 1953, unknown remains from the Korean peninsula were transferred to the Central Identification Unit Kokura in Japan. Still unable to be identified, the remains of Coleman, then identified as unknown soldier X-5960, were buried with almost 850 other unidentified sets of remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu in 1956.
In January 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency disinterred Unknown X-5960, as part of Phase One of the Korean War Disinterment Plan and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis.
Coleman was accounted for by the DPAA May 23, 2022, after his remains were identified using circumstantial evidence and chest radiograph analysis as well as dental, anthropological, and mitochondrial DNA analysis.
His name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission's Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
According to Terre Haute newspaper archives, Coleman was born in Hillsdale on July 21, 1928, and his family moved to Clinton two years later. His survivors at the time of his death included five brothers and three sisters, as well as his parents, Fay and Cora Coleman of Nevada.
His older brothers all served in World War II and his father served in World War I, according to the newspaper account in October 1952.
More than 7,500 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War.
Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
