Norman Phillip Dufresne, age 20, from Leominster, Massachusetts, Worcester county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Sunday, July 30, 1950
Death details: On September 19, 2013, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Private First Class Norman Phillip Dufresne, missing from the Korean War. Private First Class Dufresne, who entered the U.S. Army from Massachusetts, served with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. On July 30, 1950, he was killed in action while his unit was engaged in combat with North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) forces near the town of Chinju, South Korea. PFC Dufresne’s remains were recovered in August 1951 and buried at the United Nations Military Cemetery (UNMC) in Tanggok, South Korea. They were later sent to an identification unit in Kokura, Japan, for analysis; however, they could not be identified at the time and were buried as unknown remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. In 2012, advances in forensic technology prompted the disinterment and eventual identification PFC Dufresne’s remains.
Source: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Boston Globe (2013)