16 US soldiers killed in World War II and Korea are counted

The number of 16 soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean War has been determined, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on Monday.

Seven of the US military personnel recorded were prisoners of war who died in World War II. The other nine died in the Korean War.

The seven prisoners of war – identified as Air Forces Sgt. Jack H. Hohlfeld, Corporal Raymond N. DeCloss, Sgt. Sam A. Prince, Tech. Sgt. Charles E. Young Jr, Air Forces Private Robert W. Cash, Private Jacob Gutterman and Pfc. Joseph C. Murphy – were some of the thousands of soldiers captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines and held as prisoners of war.

The DPAA did not provide details on how the seven POWs were identified and did not immediately respond to a CBS News request for comment. The agency typically uses a variety of methods, including mitochondrial DNA analysis and isotope analysis, to identify the remains of fallen soldiers. It then contacts surviving family members to plan a full military burial.

The nine soldiers killed in the Korean War were killed in fighting around the peninsula. Sergeant Clayton M. Pierce, Corporal William Colby and Sergeant Charles E. Beaty were reported missing after their units were attacked by enemy troops near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. Pierce and Colby both belonged to the same regiment.

Corporal Jesse L. Mitchell and Sgt. John P. Rhyter both disappeared when their units were engaged in what the DPAA called “intense combat operations” during the Battle of Ch’ongch’on River in 1950. Mitchell reportedly died as a prisoner of war. Rhyter was not recorded as killed during the battle, but there was also “never any evidence that he was a prisoner of war,” the DPAA said. The U.S. Army listed a presumed death in 1956, but his whereabouts have not been determined until now.

The circumstances of the deaths of the remaining four soldiers were also unclear. Corporal Edward J. Smith was reported missing in action near Changnyong, South Korea, in August 1950. Sergeant 1st Class Israel Ramos was reported missing in action near Yongsan, South Korea, in August 1950, but the DPAA said his body could not be recovered and his remains were declared unaccounted for in 1956. Pfc. Charles A. Vorel Jr. was reported missing in action near the Kum River in South Korea in July 1950 and was also declared unaccounted for in 1956. Army Sergeant Kester B. Hardman was reported missing in action in April 1951. After the war ended in 1953, North Korean forces said Hardman died as a prisoner of war in a POW camp, but his remains were not identified during or immediately after the war, according to the DPAA.

The DPAA did not provide information on how the whereabouts of the nine men were determined or how the remains of the soldiers, some of which were deemed unrecoverable, were examined.

North Korea is the only country with fallen U.S. soldiers with which the DPAA does not have diplomatic relations. However, in 2018, 55 boxes of Korean War remains were repatriated to the U.S. following an agreement between Kim Jong-Un and former President Donald Trump. Ashley Wright, a public relations specialist for the DPAA, told CBS News in May that those boxes “contained 250 different DNA sequences.”