Clanton, Robert Waine
Army Private 1st class

Robert Waine Clanton from Calhoun County Bruce, Mississippi .

Parents: Minnie McKnight

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Friday, December 1, 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. Corporal Robert Waine Clanton, who joined the U.S. Army from Michigan, served with the Headquarters Battery, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured on December 1, 1950, as his unit provided firing cover for the withdrawing 2nd Infantry Division troops near Kunu-ri, North Korea. He was marched to POW Camp 5 near Pyoktong, North Korea, where he died of dysentery and malnutrition on March 1, 1951, and was buried near the camp. His remains were not recovered at the time, and he has not been identified among those remains returned to U.S. custody after the ceasefire. Corporal Clanton 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, Associated Press (1954)