Matney, Donald Eugene
Army Private

Donald Eugene Matney, age 18, from Webster County Missouri.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, July 20, 1950
Death details: On July 19, 2016, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Corporal Donald Eugene Matney, missing from the Korean War. Corporal Matney entered the U.S. Army from Missouri and served with H Company, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. On July 20, 1950, he was killed in action during an engagement with the enemy near Taejon, South Korea. His remains could not be recovered at the time of his loss. In March 1951, CPL Matney’s remains were recovered by a local resident in Taejon; however, they could not be individually identified at the time, and he was reinterred as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. In May 2016, the remains were disinterred and analysts were able to identify them as those of CPL Matney. Corporal Matney 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