Randall, Elgin Vogala
Army Private

Elgin Vogala Randall from Maine, Aroostook county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Monday, November 27, 1950
Death details: On July 11, 1950, the U.S. Army’s 21st Infantry Regiment, which had arrived in Korea six days earlier, was placed in defensive positions near the town of Chochiwon, South Korea. The regiment was not at full strength and lacked artillery and anti-tank weapons. That day, they were attacked by North Korean forces and were forced to withdraw to avoid being surrounded, as well as to buy time until they could be reinforced and resupplied. Sergeant Elgin Vogala Randall, who joined the U.S. Army from Alabama, served with Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces north of Chochiwon on July 12, and forced to march to the Apex prison camps in North Korea. He died of malnutrition on an unspecified date between March and September 1951, at the camp at An-dong. His companions buried him “under the snow in a cornfield,” near the camp. It is possible that after the snow melted, villagers reburied him in a non-tillable area. His remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody. Today, Sergeant Randall is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency