Smith, Vernon Dean
Army Corporal

Vernon Dean Smith from Newport, Vermont, Orleans county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Wednesday, November 1, 1950
Death details: During the last week of October 1950, Republic of Korea (ROK) Army forces under the control of the U.S. Eighth Army were advancing deep in North Korean territory, approaching the Yalu River on the Chinese-Korean border. Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) struck back in a surprise attack, engaging the ROK 1st and 6th Divisions near Unsan, some sixty miles north of Pyongyang. The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, with the 8th Cavalry Regiment in the lead, was rushed forward to reinforce the ROK units in the Unsan area. On November 1, the regiment’s 1st Battalion took up positions north of Unsan, while the 2nd Battalion moved to guard the Nammyon River valley west of town, and the 3rd Battalion was placed in reserve at the valley’s southern end. Sergeant Vernon Dean Smith, who joined the U.S. Army from Vermont, was a member of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. By midnight on November 1, 1950, the 8th Cavalry Regiment was forced to withdraw from Unsan to Ipsok to avoid encirclement by the enemy. The CCF infiltrated around the road out of Unsan and continuously attacked the withdrawing men, who had to fight through several enemy road blocks to reach Ipsok. Sergeant Smith was captured by the CCF during this moving battle. He was eventually marched to Camp 5, a prison camp on the bank of the Yalu River in Pyoktong, North Korea. Returning prisoners of war reported that SGT Smith died at Camp 5 in February of 1951. His remains have not been recovered or identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Sergeant Smith is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Rutland Daily Herald (1954)