Donaldson, Tellis Wayland
Army Master sergeant

Tellis Wayland Donaldson, age 36, from Covington County Lockhart, Alabama .

Parents: Lena R. Donaldson

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, November 30, 1950
Death details: By mid-November 1950, U.S. and Allied forces had advanced to within approximately sixty miles of the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. On November 25, approximately 300,000 Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) “volunteers” suddenly and fiercely counterattacked after crossing the Yalu. The 2nd Infantry Division, located the farthest north of units at the Chongchon River, could not halt the CCF advance and was ordered to withdraw to defensive positions at Sunchon in the South Pyongan province of North Korea. As the division pulled back from Kunu-ri toward Sunchon, it conducted an intense rearguard action while fighting to break through well-defended roadblocks set up by CCF infiltrators. The withdrawal was not complete until December 1, and the 2nd Infantry Division suffered extremely heavy casualties in the process. Master Sergeant Tellis Wayland Donaldson, who joined the U.S. Army from Alabama, served with Battery C, 38th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He went missing in action on November 30, 1950, as his unit made a fighting retreat from Kunu-ri south to Sunchon. He was not reported as a prisoner of war (POW), though a POW returnee mentioned that he had been killed on the battlefield. The area where he went missing was never again under friendly control, and his remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody. Today, Master Sergeant Donaldson 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, Birmingham Post Herald (1950)