Gilbert Lester Pettis from New York, Chenango county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Sunday, July 16, 1950
Death details: On the evening of July 15, 1950, the U.S. Army’s 19th Infantry Regiment held defensive positions along the south bank of the Kum River. As dusk approached, North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) tanks appeared on the opposite shore and began firing on the U.S. positions. Although U.S. troops repulsed the attacks that evening, the next morning the NKPA crossed the river and launched a major attack against the 19th Regiment. As the regiment began withdrawing south to Taejon, the North Koreans pushed deep into their defensive lines and set up a roadblock en route to Taejon. When retreating American convoys could not break through the roadblock, soldiers were forced to leave the road and attempt to make their way in small groups across the countryside. Of the 900 soldiers in the 19th Infantry when the Battle of Kum River started, only 434 made it to friendly lines. Corporal Gilbert Lester Pettis entered the U.S. Army from New York and served with Company C, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured on July 16, 1950, during the Battle of Kum River, while attempting to withdraw through the enemy roadblock outside Taejon. After his capture, he was a part of a group of prisoners of war (POW) known as “Tiger Group” who were marched to various holding camps in North Korea. In mid-September, in the North Korean’s attempt to evade the allies, CPL Pettis and “Tiger Group” were moved from point to point around the village of Manpo before finally recollecting at a temporary camp known as the “Cornfield Site.” By then, CPL Pettis was mortally ill, and he died while still at the “Cornfield Site.” Corporal Pettis’s remains have not been recovered, and he was not identified among any of the remains returned to the U.S. following the war. Today, Corporal Pettis is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency