Dellolio, Nicholas
Army Private

Nicholas Dellolio, age 21, from Bronx County New York.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Sunday, August 6, 1950
Death details: On July 10, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of U.S. Army Cpl. Nicholas Salvatore Dell Olio, missing from the Korean War. Dell Olio entered the Army from New York and served with M Company, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. In early Aug. 1950, members of Dell Olio’s 34th Infantry Regiment were defending a bulge in the Naktong River in South Korea as part of a defensive formation known as the Pusan Perimeter, set up by the United Nation Command (UNC) forces to protect the critical Pusan Harbor from the invading North Korean People’s army (NKPA) while waiting for U.S. reinforcements to arrive. Beginning on Aug. 6, the NKPA launched attacks across the Naktong River in three areas, attempting to break through the Pusan Perimeter in the Naktong Bulge area. It was during this series of engagements that Dell Olio was reported MIA, on Aug 6, 1950. While UNC forces would successfully counterattack and force the NKPA back across the river in mid-to-late August 1950, no further information concerning the whereabouts of Dell Olio was discovered during these operations. With no evidence of his continued survival, the Army issued Dell Olio a presumptive finding of death as of Dec. 31, 1953. During postwar recovery and identification efforts, a set of remains had been recovered from the Naktong Bulge area of the Pusan Perimeter near Taegong-ni, South Korea, but at the time, the remains could not be identified and were interred as an Unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. The DPAA proposed a plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the Punchbowl in 2018. In July 2021, as part of Phase Three of this Korean War Disinterment Plan, the Unknown recovered near Taegong-ni was disinterred and the remains sent to a DPAA laboratory for analysis. There, based on the laboratory analysis and total circumstantial evidence this Unknown was identified as Dell Olio.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency