Witherell, Francis Kenneth
Army Corporal

Francis Kenneth Witherell, age 26, from Chautauqua County Dunkirk, New York .

Parents: Gladys M. Witherell

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Tuesday, August 29, 1950
Death details: On July 28, 1950, members of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, were in defensive positions near Kochang, South Korea, west of the Naktong River. They served as part of a defensive formation soon to be known as the Pusan Perimeter, meant to delay the North Korean People’s Army’s (NKPA) advance through South Korea long enough so that reinforcements could arrive at Pusan Harbor. That night, members of the 34th Infantry reported seeing a procession of enemy tanks and infantry assemble behind a roadblock west of Kochang. The next morning, this NKPA force attacked the 34th Infantry positions from two directions. Continuous enemy fire eventually forced the regiment to withdraw to the east; however, Company I was cut off by the NKPA. A counterattack was successful in rescuing all but one platoon from Company I, though many men were killed or went missing during these actions. Corporal Francis Kenneth Witherell entered the U.S. Army from New York and was a member of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured during this fighting near Kochang on August 29, 1950. Following his capture, CPL Witherell was marched with other prisoners of war (POWs) toward Pyongyang, North Korea. Repatriated POWs later reported he was killed by a prison guard on October 20 while aboard a POW transport train that was stopped in a tunnel near Sunchon, North Korea. He was buried nearby and later reinterred in the U.N. Military Cemetery at Pyongyang, though he was not identified among the remains returned from this area to the U.S. following the war. He is still unaccounted-for. Today, Corporal Witherell 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, Buffalo Courier Express (1950)