Roy Stewart – Corporal, United States Army

by

Roy Stewart

Hinds, Mississippi
Born 1925
Corporal, U.S. Army
Service Number 14054453
Died while Prisoner of War
Died March 14, 1951 in Korea

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Corporal Stewart was a veteran of World War II.

In Korea, he was a Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was taken Prisoner of War while fighting the enemy in North Korea on November 30, 1950 and died while a prisoner on March 14, 1951. His remains were not recovered.

His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.

Corporal Stewart was awarded the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Prisoner of War Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea War Service Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 724-10
August 13, 2010

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, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Corporal Roy Stewart, U.S. Army, of Jackson, Mississippi.  His funeral will be held Tuesday, 17 August 2010, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.  Representatives from the Army’s mortuary office met with the next-of-kin of Stewart to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.

Stewart was assigned to Company A, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, deployed to North Korea near Kujang-dong.  In late November 1950, he was captured by enemy forces and reportedly died March 14, 1951, while in captivity near Pyoktong, North Korea.

During Operation Glory in the fall of 1954, North Korea turned over 4,167 caskets including remains they claimed to be those of Stewart.  This was part of an agreement in which each side would return remains of enemy soldiers.  The United States returned caskets containing the remains of more than 12,000 communist soldiers.  At the time the Army was unable to identify Stewart and the remains were buried as “unknown” along with 415 other servicemembers.

In 2008, an analyst from DPMO and an independent researcher concluded they had evidence that supported identification of several unknown soldiers buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.  The remains were exhumed in September 2008.  Scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command identified Stewart’s remains through dental comparisons and circumstantial evidence related to the 1954 turnovers.

More than 2,000 servicemen died as prisoners of war during the Korean War.  With the accounting of Stewart, 8,023 servicemembers still remain missing from that conflict.

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