Lilly, Edmund Jones III
Army 2nd lieutenant

Edmund Jones III Lilly, age 22, from Cumberland County Asheville, North Carolina .

Parents: E. J. Lilly
Spouse: Married

Service era: Korea
Schools: West Point (1950)
Military history: Second Division

Date of death: Sunday, September 3, 1950
Death details: On December 8, 2003, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Second Lieutenant Edmund Jones Lilly III, missing from the Korean War. Second Lieutenant Lilly entered the U.S. Army from North Carolina and served in Company B, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. In late August 1950, Company B occupied Hill 209 near Yongsan, South Korea, which was one of a series of U.S. defensive positions known as the Pusan Perimeter, which was critical for protecting the strategic harbor at Pusan. On August 31, 1950, North Korean People’s Army forces launched an attack on the Pusan Perimeter, and Hill 209 was assaulted by an overwhelming enemy force that captured it after several days of pitched fighting. 2LT Lilly was killed during this battle on September 3, 1950. His body was reportedly located when U.S. forces recaptured the hill, but it could not be recovered at the time. In 2002, a South Korean investigative team found remains on the hill and returned them to U.S. custody. These remains were identified as those of Second Lieutenant Lilly. Second Lieutenant Lilly 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, Asheville Citizen Times (1950)