Tippery, Donald Edward
Army Private 1st class

Donald Edward Tippery, age 26, from South Dakota, Minnehaha county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, November 2, 1950
Death details: On November 8, 2001, Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Corporal Donald Edward Tippery, missing from the Korean War. Corporal Tippery entered the U.S. Army from South Dakota and served with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. On November 2, 1950, members of Company L were occupying a defensive position near Unsan, North Korea, north of a bend in the Kuryong River known as the “Camel’s Head Bend.” That day, CPL Tippery was in a group of soldiers withdrawing on foot down the Unsan-Ipsok road in North Korea when they encountered enemy forces; CPL Tippery did not survive the ensuing combat, although the exact details surrounding his loss are unknown. His body was not recovered at the time. In 2000, a U.S. recovery team accessed a site along the withdrawal route in Unsan correlating to CPL Tippery’s loss and recovered human remains, and U.S. analysts identified CPL Tippery from these remains.

Source: National Archives, Rapid City Journal (1954)