Catherine Rusoff
The remains of a 17-year-old soldier from Michigan who went missing in action during the Korean War have been found, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Tuesday, just days after the agency announced that the remains of a 17-year-old Illinois soldier killed in the war had been identified.
Thomas A. Smith, from Michigan, was a member of the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Platoon, Company A, 3rd Engineer Combat Battalion, 24th Infantry Division in the summer of 1950. He was last seen when his unit participated in a firefighting action. defense near Chinju, a region on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, according to the DPAA. After the battle, Smith could not be found. The DPAA said there is no evidence that Smith was ever a prisoner of war and that no remains were recovered after the fighting.
The Illinois soldier was identified as U.S. Army Corporal Richard Seloover, a member of Heavy Mortar Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. Seloover disappeared after his unit “engaged in combat actions” along the Naktong River in South Korea on September 6, 1950. the DPAA said. The circumstances of his death are “unknown” and, at the time, his body could not be recovered due to what the DPAA called “intense fighting in the area”.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Both men were declared dead by the Army on December 31, 1953, more than three years after they disappeared. The names of the two men were registered in the Courts of the Missing at the cemetery.
Amid the war, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps was tasked with “recovering, identifying and repatriating those lost” in battle, the DPAA said. In the late 1950s, two sets of remains were recovered near villages in South Korea. The sets were labeled “Unknown X-5077 Tanggok” and “Unknown X-348”. Neither set of remains could be identified at the time, and both were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In March 2019, the remains of “Unknown X-5077 Tanggok” were unearthed as part of a plan to exhume more than 600 sets of unknown remains. The remains of the “unknown X-348” were unearthed in June 2021, the DPAA said.
Both remains were sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. Research into the remains included the use of dental and anthropological analysis, as well as mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Tests identified that the “Unknown X-5077 Tanggok” remains as belonging to Smith as of September 2023, according to your personal file.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
In January 2024, the remains of “Unknown X-348” were identified as belonging to Seloover, according to your file. The study of his remains also included the use of a chest X-ray and “other circumstantial evidence,” the agency said.
Now that the men have been accounted for, rosettes will be placed next to their names in the Courts of the Missing.
Smith will be buried in his hometown of Grant, Michigan, at a later date, the DPAA said. Seloover will be buried in Rock Falls, Illinois, at a later date.
DPAA did not say whether any of the men had surviving family members. A call to the U.S. Army Accident Bureau, where DPAA directs family and funeral investigations, was not answered.
The remains of more than 450 Americans who died in the Korean War have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. according to DPAA. More than 7,000 American soldiers remain missing in the conflict. Hundreds of these remains are believed to be “non-recoverable,” but the agency continues to work to account for and provide burials for as many fallen soldiers as possible.
