Korean War Ex-POW Association: Information

Returned POWs and MIAs

By FRED HANSON
The Patriot Ledger
May 25, 2007

RANDOLPH - Army Cpl. Robert Imrie died a hero's death more than a half-century ago on a battlefield on the other side of the world.

Until two weeks ago, his story ended when the Randolph native was killed on a hill in Korea on Nov. 27, 1950. Allied troops were pushed out of the area in a Communist counteroffensive, before the 23-year-old soldier's body could be recovered.

That changed with a call from the Army Casualty Office to Imrie's niece, Frances Anderson in Alexandria, Va. She was told DNA tests identified a set of remains recovered from Korea as those of her uncle.

"She was so stunned, she didn't ask any questions," said her sister, Anne Imrie of Arlington, Va.

"It was a goosebump moment," Anne Imrie said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We were excited to get the news. We never thought we would see this day."

Anne Imrie and Anderson are planning to have their uncle buried in Arlington National Cemetery. "Unfortunately, my grandmother and father are not alive, but we know they would be very proud of this moment," she said.

The sisters have been invited to breakfast at the White House on Monday, and will participate in the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

On June 5, the sisters are scheduled to meet with military officials. "They will give us a lot more detail on what they found and how to handle the burial," she said.

Born seven years after her uncle's death, Anne Imrie said her family didn't talk about him much when she was growing up.

"He was just talked about as a revered memory," she said.

Seven years ago, the military began seeking relatives of the 8,400 Americans listed as missing in the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953.

The DNA testing process used by the military works best with a female relative on the maternal side. Robert Imrie's mother, Ethel Imrie, died in 1991 after she was seriously burned in a fire in her South Street home.

Robert Imrie's only brother, Aubrey, a 30-year veteran of the Air Force, died in 1986. They did not have any sisters. The DNA sample used to identify the remains came from his mother's brother, Leroy Tulk, who died four years ago at the age of 92.

James Hurley, the town's former veterans agent, was pleased to hear that Imrie had been identified.

"Isn't that wonderful," he said last night. "I wish his mother was around to hear it."

Hurley knew Imrie slightly. He was two years behind Imrie at Stetson High School, the forerunner to Randolph High.

He said about seven years ago, a retired Army lieutenant colonel found Imrie's dog tags in Korea. Hurley said he wrote to the officer, hoping to get the dog tags to put them on display in Imrie's hometown, but they had been sent to the Department of Defense museum.

Hurley said he plans to include a mention of Imrie in the town's Memorial Day observances Monday morning.

Imrie was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for sacrificing himself to save the other members of his platoon.

Part of the the 2nd Infantry Division, Imrie was a member of a platoon ordered to retake a hill lost to Communist forces near Yong Bong Dong, South Korea. Near the crest of the hill, the platoon came under intense crossfire from machine guns at either end of the enemy lines.

Aware that the crossfire could wipe out his comrades, Imrie "single-handedly charged the machine gun position on the right flank, completely disregarding his personal safety, and continually fired his automatic weapon until he had neutralized the position." his medal citation reads.

Imrie was killed by fire from the other machine gun.

"His gallant and intrepid actions had diverted enemy machine gun fire from his platoon, thereby saving his comrades from annihilation and enabling them to eliminate the one remaining machine gun position and secure the objective," the citation concludes.

The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia has been working with families from the Korean War since the early 1990s.

Maureen Dunn, one of the founders of the movement, is pleased that their efforts have helped another family from another war.

"I don't think there's anything more horrendous than the unknown," Dunn said. "It's a story without an end."

Dunn's husband, Navy Cmdr. Joseph Dunn, is missing and presumed dead. His plane was shot down in 1968 over the South China Sea during the Vietnam War.

She said families from the Korean War have become more active, and the North Korean government has been releasing more and more information.

Dunn said efforts to locate, identify and return the remains of military members from other wars is the legacy left by the families of the Vietnam POWs and MIAs.

"It started here in this town, and what we did will benefit someone from this town," she said.

The town named a street for Imrie, and the "Good Shepherd" windows above the altar of Trinity Episcopal Church were donated in his memory.

Fred Hanson may be reached at fhanson@ledger.com.

POW's Remains To Be Buried In Central PA

ANNVILLE, Pa. -- The remains of an American soldier who died in a prison camp during the Korean War will be buried in Lebanon County. Military officials said Clarence Robert Becker was a 19-year-old private when he disappeared on Dec. 1, 1950, after his convoy was ambushed.

In 1954, the Chinese government told the United States that Becker had been captured and died in a POW camp on May 20, 1951.

The Lancaster native's remains were dug up in 2005 and later identified through dental records. His family said he is to be buried Wednesday at Fort Indiantown Gap National Cemetery.

Reprinted with permission from 8 WGAL.com.

Remains of Six Americans Returned

PANMUNJOM, Korea - U.S. envoys entered South Korea from North Korea in a rare border crossing Wednesday after securing the remains of six American soldiers from the Korean War and pushing for action on the North's nuclear disarmament.

On Wednesday, the Americans drove two hours from the North Korean capital Pyongyang along virtually traffic-free roads, seeing farmers working fields with their hands and people walking along the highway. The remains of the soldiers were transported separately in small, black cases.

Before crossing into the South, the delegation toured the buildings where the armistice that ended the Korean War was negotiated and signed, with a guide showing them where each party sat.

They then walked across the North-South frontier at the truce village of Panmunjom, where the two Koreas stand face-to-face across the border that has divided the peninsula since the 1953 cease-fire.

Principi said the mission to deliver the remains was one of the most emotional moments of his life.

"To participate in such a noble mission to bring home the remains of men who 50 years ago were in harm's way, and now they're home, it was really quite moving," he said.

More than 33,000 U.S. troops died in the Korean War, which began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. Some 8,100 U.S. servicemen still are listed as missing.

In 2005, the U.S. government halted a separate cooperative program that permitted U.S. military teams to excavate remains from North Korean battlefields, saying the North had created an unsafe environment. The program had recovered remains believed to be from 220 soldiers since 1996.

North Korea has no plans to resume the joint recovery operations, Richardson's Asian affairs adviser, K.A. "Tony" Namkung said, citing comments by North Korean Gen. Ri Chan Bok. Namkung said Ri had offered the six sets of remains as a gesture in return for Richardson's reconciliation efforts.

Read the full story at armytimes.com.

April 10, 2007
ARRIVAL CEREMONY SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY

HICKAM AFB, HAWAII - A ceremony to honor remains believed to be those of six U.S. service members lost during the Korean War will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m. inside Hangar 35 on Hickam AFB.

The remains were turned over by North Korean officials to a U.S. delegation earlier this week. Following the ceremony, the remains will be transported to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command to undergo forensic identification.

Media interested in covering the ceremony must contact JPAC no later than 12 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11. JPAC personnel will provide media escort from the Hickam AFB main gate to the ceremony site at 9 a.m., 9: 30 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Thursday. No media members will be granted access after 10 a.m. Interview opportunities will be available immediately following the ceremony.

Korea MIA comes home

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
GORDON DILLOW
Register columnist

It's been more than 56 years since a young American soldier named Jimmie Dorser disappeared in the freezing, bloody cauldron that was the battle of the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.

But today, finally, Jimmie is coming home.

Shortly after noon, if all goes according to plan, a commercial flight will land at John Wayne Airport with a coffin on board. Inside the coffin, at long last released from the hard cold earth of North Korea, will be Jimmie's skeletal remains, still bearing evidence of a gunshot wound he suffered in that terrible battle so long ago. His bones will be wrapped in a wool Army blanket, with a fresh uniform draped over him, complete with all his medals and insignia.

A delegation will greet the coffin on the tarmac and then, with a police escort, Jimmie Dorser will be taken to a funeral home in Huntington Beach. He will stay there until Saturday morning, when with full military honors he will be buried at El Toro Memorial Park—a half a world and more than half a century away from where and when he died in this nation's service.

And for his two sisters, Betty Neilson, 71, and Terri Bommarito, 66, of Huntington Beach, their brother's homecoming is nothing less than miraculous.

"There wasn't a day that I didn't hope this would happen," says Terri, who was just 10 years old when her brother was lost. "It really is a miracle."

We can start this story in November 1950, when Army Pfc. Dorser, an 18-year-old infantryman from Springfield, Mo., assigned to the 31st Regimental Combat Team, was part of a seemingly victorious American army marching north toward the Yalu River, driving a defeated North Korean army before it. Everybody thought they'd be home by Christmas.

But the American high command didn't know that hundreds of thousands of Red Chinese soldiers had slipped across the border into North Korea. In overwhelming numbers, and amid sub-zero temperatures, the Chinese fell upon the American soldiers and Marines near the Chosin Reservoir and elsewhere.

Although it was a strategic defeat for the Americans, U.S. Marines remember the Chosin Reservoir battle as a proud moment, a time when they "attacked in a different direction" and made a fighting withdrawal with virtually all of their wounded and most of their dead. Less well-remembered was the Army's 31st RCT Pfc.—Dorser's unit— which helped defend the Marines' flank until the soldiers were overwhelmed and overrun, with the wounded and dead often left where they lay.

In all, the Army and Marines suffered almost 8,000 dead, wounded and missing in the battle. Pfc. Dorser was one of them.

His sister, Terri, remembers when her family got the news that Jimmie was missing in action. (His status was later changed to missing presumed dead.) Her mother, she says, never got over not knowing what had happened to her boy. Later, after the family had moved to California, she died not knowing.

Skip ahead a half century, to when a North Korean farmer was working in a field near the Chosin Reservoir and uncovered some bones. He reported it to authorities, and in 2002 members of the Hawaii-based U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command were allowed by the North Koreans to excavate the site. Skeletal remains of five Americans were found and sent to Hawaii for possible identification.

The find wasn't unprecedented. Although they're currently suspended, since 1996 U.S. teams have made a number of MIA searches inside North Korea, recovering more than 200 sets of remains, and the North Koreans have handed over about 200 more. Of those, just over 40 have been positively identified.

Meanwhile, Terri Bommarito heard about MIA remains being found in North Korea and contacted the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office to see if any of them could be her brother. They asked for a DNA sample from her, which she sent.

Then, just before Thanksgiving, Terri and Betty got the word. Their brother had been positively identified as one of the five Americans discovered by the North Korean farmer.

"I never really thought they would find him," Betty says. "I just can't get over it."

"It's an amazing story," says Sgt. 1st Class Michael Giangregorio, a "casualty assistance officer" at Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base. Although the exact cause of death can't be determined, Giangregorio believes the circumstances indicate that Cpl. Dorser he was officially promoted to corporal after he went missing died doing his duty.

"It appears his position was overrun and he died still fighting the fight," Giangregorio says. "Cpl. Dorser was one of our brothers in arms, and we're going to do all we can to give him the honor he deserves."

There will be a visitation for Cpl. Dorser Friday from 4-8 p.m. at Advantage Funeral & Cremation Services, 627 Main St., Huntington Beach, and a military burial at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest on Saturday at 11 a.m. Cpl. Dorser's sisters say the public is invited.

"We want people to know about this," Betty says.

Of course, there's still a long way to go in resolving the mysteries of the Korean War. The bodies of more than 8,000 Americans from that war remain missing and many, perhaps most, may never be found and identified.

But at least for Cpl. Dorser's family there is an ending, a resolution, an answer.

Jimmie is coming home.

Gordon Dillow served as a U.S. Army sergeant in Vietnam in 1971-72, and has several times been an embedded reporter with Marines in Iraq. Contact him at 714-796-7953 or GLDillow@aol.com

Reposted with permission from the author.

See information about the POWs/MIAs that were returned June - December 2007.
See information about the POWs/MIAs that were returned in 2006.

By FRED HANSON The Patriot Ledger May 25, 2007