Wallace Ray Lovelady, age 21, from Hamilton County Daisy, Tennessee .
Parents: Cecil Lovelady
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. Sergeant Wallace Ray Lovelady, who joined the U.S. Army from Tennessee, served with Headquarters and Headquarters Services Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was taken captive on November 30, 1950, during his unit’s attempt to fight through a heavily defended enemy roadblock near Sonachu, North Korea. Repatriated prisoners of war later reported that SGT Lovelady died in January of 1951 at the Death Valley Camp in Hofong, North Korea. His remains were not among those returned from this area since the ceasefire, and he is unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant Lovelady is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Chattanooga Daily Times (1954)