Block, Kenneth Roy
Army Corporal

Kenneth Roy Block, age 22, from Birmingham, Michigan, Oakland county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Sunday, December 3, 1950
Death details: On May 18, 2012, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of MSG Corporal Kenneth Roy Block, missing from the Korean War. Corporal Block entered the U.S. Army from Michigan and served in M Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. On December 3, 1950, he was killed by Chinese Communist Forces during his unit’s withdrawal to the village of Hagaru-ri, North Korea. He was buried near the area of his loss, but his remains were not returned to the U.S. immediately following the war. In 2001 a joint U.S./ North Korean investigative team recovered the remains of several U.S. soldiers from a mass grave site near the Chosin Reservoir. In 2012, analysts were able to successfully identify CPL Block from among these remains. Corporal Block is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Lansing State Journal (1951)