James Wallce Buckley from Monroe County New York.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Unknown
Death details: By mid-November 1950, U.S. and Allied forces had advanced to within approximately sixty miles of the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. On November 25, approximately 300,000 Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) “volunteers” suddenly and fiercely counterattacked after crossing the Yalu. The 2nd Infantry Division, located the farthest north of units at the Chongchon River, could not halt the CCF advance and was ordered to withdraw to defensive positions at Sunchon in the South Pyongan province of North Korea. As the division pulled back from Kunu-ri toward Sunchon, it conducted an intense rearguard action while fighting to break through well-defended roadblocks set up by CCF infiltrators. The withdrawal was not complete until December 1, and the 2nd Infantry Division suffered extremely heavy casualties in the process. Corporal James Wallace Buckley, who joined the U.S. Army from New York, was a member of the Headquarters Company, 38th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured on November 30, 1950, near Somin-dong, North Korea, during the 38th Infantry Regiment’s defense of the area east of Kunu-ri. He was marched north to holding camps along the Yalu River and died of malnutrition on or before January 31, 1951, at the Pukchin Mining “Death Valley” POW Camp. He was buried near the camp, but his remains were not identified among those returned to the U.S. following the war. He is still unaccounted-for. Today, Corporal Buckley is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, which was updated in 2022 to include the names of the fallen.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency