Korean War veteran identified as Georgia resident after 70 years

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read
7

An American soldier killed during the Korean War has officially been identified as a Georgia native, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Officials said his remains will be brought home to a final resting place in Georgia in September.

DPAA said the body of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class James L. Wilkinson, of Bowden, was accounted for on Dec. 5, 2022.

The Carroll County native died at 19 while serving overseas.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Federal officials said Wilkinson was a member of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division during his time in the armed forces. He joined the company in July 1950.

Wilkinson was first reported missing in action while fighting along the Naktong River near Yongson, South Korea on Sept. 8, 1950.

Fighting of the Naktong Bulge continued from August 5 to September 15, 1950, split into two battles.

Amid the fighting, officials said Wilkinson’s body could not be recovered, but no evidence suggested he had been a prisoner of war.

In December 1953, the Army issued a presumptive finding of death for Wilkinson.

TRENDING STORIES:

In July 1951, the U.S. Army started recovering remains from the area and interring them at the United Nations Military Cemetery in Tanggok. Some remains, including one designated as “Unknown X-1588″ were not identifiable at the time and were later sent to Hawaii for burial.

Those unidentified soldiers were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also called the Punchbowl in Honolulu, alongside other unknown casualties from the Korean War, according to DPAA.

During the summer of 2018, more than 650 unknown Korean War veterans were disinterred from the Punchbowl in an effort to identify the remains using dental and anthropological analysis, according to federal officials.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis was also used to identify remains.

According to DPAA, Wilkinson’s identity was established on March 25, 2019 as part of the Korean War Disinterment Project.

Wilkinson’s name was one of the soldiers recorded in the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl. Now that he’s been identified, a rosette will be placed next to his name signifying his being accounted for.

The military announcement of his identification said Wilkinson’s remains will be returned home to Georgia for burial in September.

Wilkinson will be buried in Barrow County, according to officials.

A full set of up-to-date statistics for DPAA recovery efforts from the Korean War is available online.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

OTHER NEWS: