Korean War cpl.’s remains ID’d, buried in Ohio

From Army Times: Korean War cpl.’s remains ID’d, buried in Ohio HAMILTON, Ohio — The remains of a southwest Ohio soldier who went missing during the Korean War have been identified more than 60 years later and will be buried this week with full military honors.

Army Cpl. Clyde E. Anderson, of Hamilton, is scheduled to be buried Saturday in Blanchester, about 30 miles northeast of Cincinnati, the JournalNews in Hamilton reported.

DNA tests by military forensic scientists helped confirm that Anderson’s remains were among those mixed together in more than 200 boxes of remains returned to the United States by North Korea in the early 1990s. As many as 400 individual remains were believed to be in the boxes.

Scientists used circumstantial evidence, dental records, radiography comparisons and DNA, which matched that of Anderson’s niece and nephew and niece, in identifying his remains, military officials said.

Anderson’s niece, Carol Snider, said she and her brother provided blood samples in 2002 for DNA analysis to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Snider, of Bowersville, said she was amazed when she received word about a month ago that the Army could positively identify her uncle’s remains.

“After 62 years, I wasn’t expecting anything,” she said. “We’re going to lay him to rest next to my mother. And the next day is Mother’s Day.”

Anderson was assigned to the medical company of the 31st Regimental Combat Team, the newspaper reported.

The then 24-year-old private first-class was last seen on or about Nov. 28, 1950, when a witness recalled seeing him driving a Jeep in a convoy near Chosin Reservoir. The convoy was ambushed by Chinese forces about seven miles north of the town of Hagaru-ri, according to the Defense Department.

Anderson was reported missing in action on Nov. 29, 1950, and was promoted to the rank of corporal before the military listed him as presumed dead in 1953.

More than 7,900 Americans who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, according to the Defense Department.