Ervin, Eldon William
Army Corporal

Eldon William Ervin, age 21, from Ottawa County Oklahoma.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Tuesday, November 28, 1950
Death details: On February 9, 2016, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Corporal Eldon William Ervin, missing from the Korean War. CPL Ervin joined the U.S. Army from Oklahoma and was a member of Headquarters Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, 7th Infantry Division. His unit was a part of the 31st Regimental Combat Team, which in November 1950 was positioned in the Pungnyu-ri Inlet area of the Chosin Reservoir. On November 28, 1950, Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) launched a large-scale surprise attack against U.S. forces in the Chosin Reservoir, and CPL Ervin was killed in the fighting. His remains could not be recovered at the time of his loss, and they were not among remains returned to U.S. custody immediately following the conflict’s ceasefire. In 2001, a joint U.S. and North Korean recovery team recovered remains from the Chosin Reservoir area. CPL Eldon was eventually identified from among the recovered remains. Corporal Ervin 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