Stovall, John Robert
Army Private

John Robert Stovall, age 21, from Saint Clair County East Saint Louis, Illinois .

Parents: Margaret Stovall

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Friday, July 7, 1950
Death details: On June 10, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of U.S. Army Pfc. John Robert Stovall, missing from the Korean War. Stovall entered the Army from Illinois and served with K Company, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. Members of Stovall’s 34th Infantry Regiment were among the first U.S. ground troops to arrive in South Korea following the North Korean People’s army invasion on June 25, 1950. The unit’s mission was to delay the North Korean People’s army’s surge to the south as long as possible so that reinforcements could arrive. On July 6 the North Korean People’s army attacked the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 34th Infantry north of the town of Ch’onan, South Korea. The U.S. troops withdrew slowly back to the town and established defensive lines there. Stovall was reported missing in action near Ch’onan on July 7, 1950, though the exact circumstances surrounding his loss are unknown. He was never reported as a prisoner of war, and searches of the battlefield failed to recover his remains. On Oct. 15, 1950, during post-battle recovery efforts, the 565th Graves Registration Company found a set of remains near Ch’onan and interred them in the United Nations Military Cemetery Taejon. The remains were exhumed from the United Nations Military Cemetery in March 1951 for scientific analysis but could not be positively identified at the time. The remains underwent additional analysis in February 1954 but were ultimately declared unidentifiable, and in 1956, were interred as an Unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. On June 10, 2019, DPAA personnel disinterred this Unknown as part of the planned exhumation of 53 unknown burials originating from United Nations Military Cemetery Taejon and sent the remains to a DPAA laboratory for analysis. There, based on the laboratory analysis and total circumstantial evidence, the remains were identified as those of Stovall.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Associated Press (1950)