Pierce, Frederick Eugene
Army Private 1st class

Frederick Eugene Pierce, age 20, from Rock County Wisconsin.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, July 20, 1950
Death details: On July 20, 1950, the 3rd Battalion of the U.S. 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, was holding a defensive line in South Korea overlooking the Taejon Airport, northeast of the city. When enemy tanks broke through the line near the airport, U.S. troops were ordered to fall back through Taejon. The 3rd Battalion was ordered to lead the convoy out of Taejon, but ran into a series of collapsed structures and roadblocks that broke up the column. U.S. forces were unable to break through these roadblocks, and to avoid capture soldiers moved off-road and began filtering through the countryside in small groups. Corporal Frederick Eugene Pierce entered the U.S. Army from Wisconsin and was a member of D Company, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was taken as a prisoner of war (POW) on July 20, 1950, during the action near Taejon, and was part of the forced “Tiger March” to prisoner of war (POW) camps in North Korea. On November 4, 1950, while marching to a POW camp at Chungung, CPL Pierce was killed by a prison guard. His remains were left along the road where he fell. He was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Corporal Pierce 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