Fuqua Jr., Pfc. Ernest V.

January 9, 2013

SOLDIER MISSING FROM KOREAN WAR IDENTIFIED

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, were recently identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Pfc. Ernest V. Fuqua Jr., 21, of Detroit, will be buried Jan. 15, in Rochester Hills, Mich. In late November 1950, units of the 35th Infantry Regiment and allied forces were deployed in a defensive line advancing across the Ch’ongch’on River in North Korea, when Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces enemy forces attacked their position. American units sustained heavy losses as they withdrew south towards the town of Unsan. He was listed as killed in action on Nov. 28, 1950.

Between 1991 and 1994, North Korea gave the United States 208 boxes of human remains believed to contain the remains of 200-400 U.S. servicemen. North Korean documents, turned over with some of the boxes, indicated that some of the remains were recovered from the area where Fuqua was believed to have died in 1950, near the Ch’ongch’on River.

To identify the remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence, and forensic identification tools such as dental comparisons, mitochondrial DNA which matched Fuqua’s brother.

Today, more than 7,900 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War. Identifications continue to be made from the remains that were returned to the United States, using forensic and DNA technology.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.