17-year-old U.S. soldier who went missing in Korean War is accounted for

A 17-year-old soldier who was killed during the Korean War has been accounted for 75 years after he went missing, officials said Monday. 

Army Cpl. Albert J. Estrada was a member of Battery B, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, 31st Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release. He began service in July 1950, according to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation. He was one of tens of thousands of soldiers present at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950, the DPAA said. 

During the battle, 30,000 United Nations servicemembers, including U.S. soldiers, faced off against 120,000 Chinese and North Korean enemy forces in “rugged terrain in lethally cold weather,” the DPAA said. The battle, which the DPAA described as “one of the most brutal” of the entire war, raged for 17 days. 

Army officials wanted to push North Korean forces into China and sever supply lines near the Chosin reservoir, the DPAA said. But the North Korean forces launched a surprise attack that forced one group of soldiers to retreat in late November. A few days later, Chinese soldiers surrounded and isolated another group of soldiers. A task force was hastily assembled to try to organize a withdrawal. A “bitter fight” allowed U.N. forces to open an airfield to bring in reinforcements and evacuate casualties on December 1, according to the U.S. military, and eventually, the U.N. soldiers managed a full retreat. 

More than 1,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers were killed during this time, the DPAA said. Thousands more were injured or incapacitated by the cold weather. Due to the elements and the retreat, “hundreds of fallen Marines and soldiers were unable to be immediately recovered,” the DPAA said. 

Estrada was one of the soldiers who could not be located after the battle. He was reported missing on Dec. 6, 1950. There was no information to indicate that he was ever held as a prisoner of war, the DPAA said. Three years later, on Dec. 31, 1953, the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death. 

Between 1953 and 1954, the North Korean government returned thousands of remains of soldiers who had died during the Korean War. The remains had been buried in U.N. cemeteries in North Korea. The effort, known as Operation Glory, included the return of 500 sets of remains that had been buried near the Chosin reservoir. All but 126 of the remains were identified. The unidentified remains were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the DPAA said. 

From 1990 to 1994, the North Korean government returned 47 additional containers of remains attributed to the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. From those recovery efforts, the DPAA and the organizations that preceded it were able to identify over 130 of the unaccounted-for missing personnel lost in the Chosin Reservoir Campaign. 

The DPAA did not say which handover Estrada’s remains were recovered from. A full announcement of his accounting will be shared at a later date, the agency said. 

Estrada earned multiple military honors, including the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal, according to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation. 

Estrada’s surviving siblings, Manuel Estrada and Ruth Tucker, have long lobbied for his identification, according to a 2018 article from The Daily Democrat. That year, Tucker was presented with a medal from the Republic of South Korea honoring her efforts to account for missing American soldiers who died during the Korean War. At the time, Tucker said complete identification of Korean War remains can take between four and five years.